Dave's Transformers Cyberverse Rant: Scout Wave 5 Cranium Crush Ramjet (almost a proper jet) Sonic Upper Cut Dead End (cartaur) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Cyberverse/Scout5 This may be the last wave of Scouts, none have been announced past them for the year, and most of the rest of 2020 has been revealed in other lines by this point (a few reveals remain for the summer convention season). But they may also feel it's not worth bothering to hype this class. Season 3 has been revealed to be the last season of Cyberverse, so they may have decided it's not worth continuing this Class as it stands anyway. The wave also includes new-packaging reships of the axe Optimus Prime from wave 4 and Grimlock. CAPSULES $8 price point. Cranium Crush Ramjet: It ALMOST manages a proper vehicle mode, but the gimmick trigger requires something left out of place. Still, if this had been the baseline for Scouts from the start, I wouldn't despise this class so much. Mildly recommended. Sonic Upper Cut Dead End: Another typical Scout. Gimmick is unimpressive and interfers with bot mode, altmode is yet another cartaur transitional form. Neutral, because at least the gimmick doesn't utterly hose either mode. RANTS Packaging: Same size cards and blisters as previous waves, but with the new Battle for Cybertron trade dress. The design behind the blister is now a purple-shades image of Cybertron with crepuscular rays emanating from it. More of the cardback is taken up by legalese, and the massively multilingual safety sheet is included next to the folded up instructions (which are gold and purple). DECEPTICON: RAMJET Assortment: E7066 Altmode: Jet Transformation Difficulty: 5 steps Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Classics, Uni2, Armada, Energon, Cybertron, RotF Previous Mold Use: None Epithet/Gimmick: Cranium Crush Packaging: Held into the blister by the blister alone. The art and pictures lighten his color significantly, making it clear he's supposed to be dark blue. Robot Mode: A "child-safe" less pointy version of his classic appearance, with a facial expression that suggests he just smelled something nasty. While he has a significant torso chunk devoted to his gimmick, it doesn't interfere with the figure's limited articulation. 3.5" (9cm) tall and mostly very dark blue with very light gray, dark red wings on his boots, and a yellow chest cockpit. All the plastic is a blue so dark that it looks more black under normal room lighting. The wings are dipped in dark red paint, with medium gray on the "hover" fans and some stripes. Very light gray is used on the face, fake nose bit on the chest, flanks, thighs, kneecap details, and lower shin details. The eyes and a little rectangle on the forehead are also dark red, and the somewhat flat chest cockpit windows are painted slightly golden yellow. A purple Decepticon symbol is printed on his butt. It could stand a few more painted details, especially the seeker-type arm cannons and the air scoops flanking the head. The shoulders and hips are ball joints, and the hands can hold 5mm pegs. Transformation: Peg the legs together, and peg the arms to the sides on struts that go from the shoulders almost down to the knees. Those struts rotate down and snap in place...but doing so triggers the gimmick. If you want to keep the front of the jet together, you have to stop short of snapping them into place. Then fold the wings down. Vehicle Mode: It actually almost has one. The cockpit has a weird step in it because they put a premium on having the head be a cone, and the proportions in general are a bit weird, but it's actually more or less a proper jet if you can keep the gimmick from firing off. 3.5" (9cm) long with a 3" (7.5cm) wingspan in a more or less delta shape. The fuselage is mostly left dark blue, but the tail fins and thruster bumps under them are painted very light gray, and the butt-symbol is now on the top center. Snapping the arms into place makes the front inch (2.5cm) of the jet snap up on a spring-forced hinge. It's free to spin on its long axis, and a little tab on the fuselage sets it spinning when it pops up. It works okay, but makes it look like Ramjet lost a ramming competition badly. A clear rubber band salvaged from other packaging can hold it shut, though, if you want to snap the arms into place. Overall: Still a bit messed up by its gimmick, but not as badly as most Scouts, and it actually kindasorta has a real vehicle mode. Too bad this wasn't the starting point for Scouts, instead of the "finally figured out how to not completely suck just as they were cancelling it" point. DECEPTICON: DEAD END Assortment: E7067 Altmode: Cartaur Transformation Difficulty: 6 steps Previous Name Use: G1, Alt, Gen:RtS, Gen:CW, Armada, Energon, RotF, Prime Previous Mold Use: None Epithet/Gimmick: Sonic Upper Cut Packaging: Held into the blister by just its shape. As often happens in Cyberverse, the card art shows his regular face but the toy has the battle mask up. Robot Mode: Well, he's red, so a little closer to the G1 idea of Dead End than TF:Prime's is. But it's a much brighter red than most Stunticon versions. The battle mask is based on the look of Combiner Wars Dead End's faceplate, and the overall look appears to have been most inspired by the CW mold as well. 3.5" (9cm) tall and mostly bright red with medium gray, and some light gray, dull gold, and white. Medium gray plastic is used for the snap-in wheels, the pelvis rear, the hip joint struts, the right shoulder ball and strut, the left shoulder gimmick stuff, and the trigger button. Everything else is bright red plastic. Medium gray paint is used on the thighs, and details on the fronts of the shoulders and forearms. The fists and helmet are painted light gray, the faceplate is a dull gold (non-metallic), and the visor is painted red over the gold. The fake windshield on the chest is painted white. The right shoulder and left hip are ball joints. The left shoulder is locked into the gimmick and can't really be rotated safely on its own. The right hip is a pinned universal joint that clicks when the leg is lifted all the way to the front. The waist turns for transformation, but you have to lower the backpack a little to let it work in this mode. Neither hand can hold any sort of peg, but there's a 5mm socket on the right forearm outer facing. Technically you can activate the gimmick in this mode, you just have to fold the backpack down a little. Transformation: Fold the backpack down all the way, rotate the waist 180 degrees, peg the boots together, and lift the legs up 90 degrees. The weird bit where the right hip has a universal joint and the left does not is so that if you transform in the right order, the upper cut will be triggered by the clicking right hip. In robot mode, the trigger isn't connected, so lifting the leg won't make him punch. But if you turn the waist first, then lift the leg, it will automatically pop the fist up. Vehicle Mode: A car with the upper half of a robot sticking out the middle. Untriggered, the left fist sort of drags a bit. The car part is reasonably stable. The headlights and some details around them are painted white, and the front center of the hood has a white "home plate" sort of shape with a light purple Decepticon symbol printed on it. There's a little button on the back that triggers the punching action, it has to be pulled up rather than pushed down, which is a bit awkward. The arm swings up and inward, so the fist is almost at the centerline. Overall: By Scout standards, he's about average, maybe a little above average. But those are pretty pathetic standards, and this is only barely worth picking up if you're a Dead End fan and doubt that there will be any other Cyberverse toy of him. Dave Van Domelen, was really tempted to just Capsules these, but decided he could bang out full reviews in one evening since his plans for the night fell through.