Dave's Generations Rant: Thrilling 30 Deluxe Wave 3 Dreadwing (Megatron retool) Waspinator (wasp) Skids (car) Goldfire (Bumblebee retool, not reviewed) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/DeluxeT3 Well, only two totally new molds, but at least the reused molds have head swaps, and Walmart/Target have started the $10 phase. Unfortunately, because this wave started hitting around the end of 2013, a lot of stores didn't get many, or any, as they were working on getting rid of the holiday overstocks. [Addendum: Walmart has since bumped a lot of their toy prices, so Deluxes went back up to $13 by the time I actually posted this.] http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/DeluxeT1 - Megatron and Bumblebee molds. CAPSULES $10-15 price point, depending on where you find them. Dreadwing: Original mold was mildly recommended, and I would've passed on this one if I hadn't found it for $10. Very good update of 1994's Dreadwing, though, and without that toy's worst aspects (awkward proportions and pointless camo). Recommended if you're old enough to remember G2, otherwise mildly recommended. Waspinator: While the insect mode has a bit of a kibble issue, and the paint on mine was sloppily applied, this is a very good mold and brings some new design elements to the table for an old second-tier regular. Recommended. Skids: Finally found it. It's a generally cool mold and great update of the character, but suffers from iffy shoulders and really bad feet. Difficulty in keeping it standing knocks it down to merely Recommended. Goldfire: This is a Goldbug-themed retool of the mildly recommended Bumblebee mold. I wasn't too impressed when I finally saw it in person, and left it on the peg. RANTS Packaging: Same as previous waves. Each has two others from the wave as cosells on the bottom. Dreadwing has a G2 Decepticon symbol on the side of the card insert, and Waspinator has a Predacon symbol (Beast Wars, not Beast Hunters). DECEPTICON: DREADWING Altmode: Stealth Bomber Series: 02 Number: 007 Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (2) Previous Name Use: G2, Energon, Classics, Movie1, Prime Previous Mold Use: GenT30 Function: Sneak Attack Specialist Motto: "If I let you see me coming, it's because I think you're weak." DREADWING long ago devoted all of the vast power at his command to the service of the DECEPTICONS. So when SHOCKWAVE tells him about a critical experiment that will secure victory for the DECEPTICONS once and for all, he follows without question - never suspecting the doom that awaits him. STR 8 INT 6 SPD 8 END 7 RNK 7 COUR 9 FRB 10 SKL 6 Avg 7.625 Packaging: Four strings hold the robot in the blister, with the weapon simply pegged to the forearm (and undeployed). Comic: This is actually the recent Shockwave spotlight, with his life story and how he lost his idealism, his emotions, and his head and hands (the "Empurata" process). Dreadwing's in it, barely, and the doom mentioned in his bio note may refer to how he got to be the first test subject for Ore-14 (which revives the dead). It's a pretty good story, though, even if it's not Dreadwing's story. Color Swaps: The sparkly charcoal becomes a deep Decepticon Purple, the vibrant violet becomes a like robin's egg blue, the lavender-gray becomes a slightly darker robin's egg blue, and the clear plastic is now red. I expect they were trying for all the blue stuff to look the same, but couldn't quite make it match. Paint Apps: In vehicle mode, the leading edge of the wing is silver except in the very center. The intake vents and the vents along the tops of the engines are gunmetal. The windows are red, with red-outline G2 Decepticon symbols on either side of the rear of the cockpit area. The tops of the wingtips are painted purple in a pretty good match to the plastic, with red fissures visible. Painting in the panel lines with red would let those fit in better. In robot mode there's a lot of gloss black paint: toes, head, pads on the fronts and sides of the thighs. There's robin's egg blue details on teh forearms and shoulders, plus filling in the lower half of each shins. There's no paint on the kneecaps. The G2 Decepticon symbols remain visible on top of his chest. Mold Changes: The head is new. It's entirely dipped in black paint, but if it's on the same sprue as Megatron's head it'll be made of purple plastic. They did a good job of capturing the flight helmet inspired design of the original without looking quite as chunky and clunky. There don't seem to be any other mold changes. Other Notes: Other than having less black in the mix and dropping the G2 "camouflage against WHAT, precisely?" pattern, this is a very faithful update of the character. If I could make one change, it would have been to add a 5mm peg hole on the right shoulder so he could mount his cannon there in the way G2 Dreadwing's rotary cannon was positioned. Dreadwing clearly spent the past 20 years doing P90X or its Cybertronian equivalent. Well, okay, Shockwave simply transplanted him into a copy of the body he made for Megatron, as noted in the RiD series. Overall: This is probably one of the most appropriate characters to use to represent G2, because the original was the first to usher in the now-standard hyper-articulation technology, using ball joints and swivels and so forth. Prior to Dreadwing, you were lucky to get the seven joints of an Actionmaster. So even though this is a retool, it's worth picking up if you have any memories of G2. PREDACON: WASPINATOR Series: 02 Number: 008 Altmode: Wasp Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (2) Previous Name Use: BW, BWX, TF:A Previous Mold Use: None Gimmick: Flapping Wings Function: Witless Minion Motto: "Wazzzpinator have headache in WHOOOOOOLE body...." Finding himself in a world thousands of years distant from the one he once knew, WASPINATOR did the only thing he could - found someone strong and put himself under their command. Sure, he's being manipulated. And sure, he's getting blown to pieces just as regularly as he used to. But at least the guy he's working for now knows how to put him back together properly. STR 8 INT 5 SPD 8 END 5 RNK 6 COUR 7 FRB 7 SKL 6 Avg 6.5 I'd quibble with the "thousands," as Beast Wars was either millions or mere hundreds of years from the present ("present day" in BW was a few centuries in the future). Waspinator is what I'd consider a second-tier character, as noted in the capsule. He's reasonably well-known, and crops up in some form every so often, but he isn't a staple like the Big Four (Optimus Prime/Primal, Bumblebee, Megatron, Starscream) and for the most part he's always a wasp which makes fitting him into some settings difficult (although TF:A did a good job of it). Packaging: Six strings hold the robot mode togeth...er, into the blister, and the gun merely sits in the blister. The figure's heel spurs are not folded out, but otherwise the figure isn't mistransformed. Comic: A reprint of Robots in Disguise #19, which is pretty deep into the overall plot and not very accessible as a standalone, but it does establish Waspinator's role working for Jhiaxus. Robot Mode: This looks about as much like Waspinator's animation model as you're likely to get in a $10-15 toy, transforming or not. They even threw in details that are relics of the original transformation scheme, like kneespikes that look like they should become insect feet (but don't). The paint apps are a little sloppy and prone to chipping, but the overall look is very good. 5.25" (13.5cm) tall in a combination of kelly green, yellow-green, dark green, yellow, brown and black, with nice big metallic blue insect eyes on the chest. A medium kelly green plastic is used for the pecs, backpack, shins and toes. A darker shade of green is used for the forearms and the shoulder roots. A lighter yellow-green is found on the upper arms, hands, breastbone, pelvis, heel spurs and a bit inside the torso. The wings, head and blaster barrel are a milky clear plastic. The thighs, blaster body, and stripey butt are bright yellow plastic. Finally, the insect legs attached to the forearms and ankles are light brown plastic, as are the antennae on the chest, a strut inside the butt, the wing roots, and the wing actuator button. For a design that looks so unified, that's a lot of plastic types. The front of the head is painted in kelly green with dark green borders around the eyes and yellow antennae and forehead crest. There's also yellow on the inner forearms and on the rib-like details on the boots. I've only ever seen the one I bought, so I can't say if the yellow paint apps are sloppy in general, but they're pretty bad on mine. Gloss black stripes are painted on the butt, thighs, and blaster body. A matte dark green paint is used on the "cuffs" at the bottom of the shins, on the insect mouthparts, and the center of the back, in addition to the face. There's a little bit of gloss brown on the insides of the thighs. The big insect eyes on the chest are painted metallic light blue. A purple Predacon symbol with white border is printed in the center of the back. If they tried to coat the wings with an iridescent sheen, it didn't work. The neck, shoulders, elbows, hips, and wing roots are ball joints. Hinge knees, swivels at the wrist and just below the hips. The toes and heel spurs are hinged as well. The waist does not move. The single legs attached to each boot are connected with restricted ball joints, while the pairs of legs on the forearms use swivels. Sliding down a button on the back makes the wing roots lift up to the sides, for a sort of flapping gimmick. There's a fairly limited range of wing poses that look good doing this. The rifle can be folded in half for storage in beast mode, and just enough of its 5mm peg sticks out that it can be held in folded-over configuration if you'd rather Waspy have a shorter gun. Transformation: For once they don't try to make the robot legs into insect legs. Instead they "hide" under the body, with the feet almost touching the insect head. Pulling the shoulders apart makes the insect head halves slide together. Several hinges inside the shoulders let you fold the arms in and under the thorax a bit, pegging onto the sides. It takes a bit to get the hang of the required folds. The folds required to get the legs tucked under the body are quite counter-intuitive, and the result is a big chunk of robot leg under the thorax, but at lest it's a new solution that isn't "pretend the robot legs are really really thick insect legs." Also, this method puts two legs forward and four back in a somewhat more natural way. Beast Mode: Other than the robot hands sticking out and the big leg chunk under the thorax, this is a very good vespid. The relative proportions of the three main body parts are correct, and it even has the sort of hunch- backed look found in many bee and wasp species. Amusingly, the Predacon symbol is in the same place that entomologists often glue tracking tags on wasps and bees. From stinger tip to antennae it's 5.25" (13.5cm) long, and when the wings flap forward the maximum wingspan is 8" (21cm). All of the yellow pieces are assembled into the abdomen, and the stripes line up. The clear stinger points the proper direction and looks properly dangerous (although it's barbed like a bee's). While you can fiddle with the position of the wings and the hind legs on their nicely stiff joints, the only meaningful articulation is for the forelegs, which can be placed forward for a standing pose, or swung back for an in-flight pose. All of the leg joints are stiff enough to let the wasp stand without external support. Using the wing-flap gimmick is a bit awkward, since the wings swing out to the sides. You have to hold the insect by the underside with one hand and pull back the trigger with the other. Overall: It's not perfect, but it looks good in both modes and adds several new design elements to the vespid transformation scheme not seen in previous Waspinators (BW, Transmetal, Go-Bots, and TF:A representing this size class). Definitely worth picking up if you can find it. AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT SKIDS Series: 02 Number: 009 Altmode: Cruiser Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (2) Previous Name Use: We don't talk about the previous "Autobot Skids" Previous Mold Use: None Weapon: Combining blasters, hidden weapons Function: Theoretician Motto: "What gun?" With no memory of his life before a few cycles ago, AUTOBOT SKIDS finds himself with a rare opportunity. Not knowing who he is allows him to be anything he wants to be, and the firepower of his mysterious new blaster gives him the strength to follow through on any adventure he pursues. STR INT SPD END RNK COUR FRB SKL Avg Skids has a weird toy history. His color scheme has appeared a few times on toys that couldn't get the Skids trademark back, and then "Autobot Skids" from Revenge of the Fallen had nothing to do with the G1 theoretician. He's come back in the More than Meets the Eye comic as an amnesiac super-agent who seems to have locked away his own memory for an important reason. Where the original was hard-pressed to fight off Ravage, this version is an all-purpose aft-kicker. Oh, and thanks to the comic, we already know a headswap redeco named Crosscut is coming. ;) Crosscut was originally a 2002 E-Hobby redeco of G1 Skids, so it's appropriate. Packaging: Four strings hold the robot mode in place only so long as Skids consents to be held. His two guns are simply held in the blister by friction. He's packaged with all his concealed weapons out. Comic: Originally planned for a Spotlight issue and commissioned for the toy (from what I've heard), but later folded into the MtMtE series. It's the movie Rewind has been making as a recruiting tool, so while it doesn't really focus much on Skids at all (he's in many scenes, but usually not in a role that couldn't have been filled by others), it's a good introduction to the crew of the Lost Light. (Actually, it's be a perfect Spotlight Rung, but I somehow doubt Rung is getting an official toy.) Robot Mode: One advantage of being as "toyetic" as possible in designing characters, as the IDW comics tend to do, is that even if a toy wasn't planned until after the character got popular, the first pass of toy design has already been done. As a result, Skids looks quite a bit like his comic portrayal, even if the toy didn't get greenlit until after the comic version had been designed (since the comic character has been around about two years, it's plausible for it to have come first). He has the semi-G1 look, with door wings, windshield backpack, and so forth. There's a bit of an odd "boot wing" look from how the rear fenders stick out the backs of the legs. A more G1-y look can be attained by flipping up the windshield differently. Unfortunately, before I go into the usual details, I want to point out what I consider the two big flaws of this mode. One, the shoulder jointing feels more cramped than even a swivel shoulder would. Two, the heels are too short and it's hard to get the figure to stand up without falling over backwards (you can finesse this a bit by bending the mid-shin transformation joint forward so that the knee joints are farther forward, but it's still only a partial solution). I tried filing down a blocking bit that prevented the ankle from bending forward enough for stability, but it turned out to only block the last fraction of a millimeter: the ankle shaft itself blocks motion enough to ensure the figure falls over backwards in most poses. Oh, and details on the hips prevent the figure from bending over at the hips. 5.25" (13cm) tall, mostly bright blue, bright red, and light gray, with a bit of black and silver. The bright blue plastic is way brighter than the dark blue used in G1, but consistent with Tow-Line's Skids homage coloration in Energon (Energon was full of "designed to be an homage, but corporate picked a different name" toys). Bright blue used on the front of the head, the chest, shoulders, forearms, the roof-and-doors parts of the backpack, and most of the lower legs. The wheels on the shoulders and the soles of the feet are black plastic, as are the toes (totally painted over), the pelvis, and torso core. Bright red plastic is used for the upper arms, some struts in the backpack, and the caps of the ball joints in the ankles. Clear light blue plastic is used on the windshield and windows in the backpack, plus the lightpiping. Slightly metallic light gray plastic is used for the thighs, rifles, and wrist guns. I don't know what plastic is used for the shoulder guns, as they're entirely painted over, but from the stiffness of the plastic it's probably the blue plastic or maybe the black. A dark silver paint is used on the face (which has a very nice sculpt), the flip-out shoulder cannons, the grid of the shoulderpad rocket pods, the bumper and grille. The eyes are painted gold, completely blocking any lightpiping, derp. Less obvious are some gold paint bits on the shoulderpads, which become the turn signals in car mode. Red paint is used for the toes, the tips of the rocket pods, some ][ details on the grille, the pelvis, the taillights on the shins, the wheel hubs, the forehead medallion, and some tabs on the door wings. The backs of the wings have red and white stripes printed on them (the red is on top of white paint, so it looks more vibrant than other reds). Black paint is found on the lower grille of the chest. A red with white border Autobot symbol is printed on the center of the chest (hood ornament). The head is on a ball joint, the waist turns stiffly. As mentioned earlier, the shoulders are ball joints on short stalks, but the large shoulderpads combine with the wingpack to really restrict range of motion. The upper arms have very limited hinges mainly intended for bending them sideways for transformation (the forearms have to snug against the waist). The elbows are ball joints, there's no wrist articulation. The hips are ball joints, but also kinda restricted by details (they can swing backwards but not forwards). There's thigh swivels, ratcheting hinge knees, and transformation hinges in the mid-shin that give a bit of range of motion. The ankles are ball joints on stalks, but as noted above they don't really bend in the one direction that's necessary for stability. Seriously, you get a more stable figure by spinning the feet around backwards. The hands can hold 5mm pegs, but there's no other accessible peg holes in this mode (the two on the soles of the feet are not too useful). Weapons: He comes with two handguns. One is a stubby drum-fed machine pistol, which is the "what gun?" he's always holding in the comic without realizing he has it. The other is a longer rifle based on the G1 toy's main rifle. The short gun can plug into the back of the longer one for a longer rifle that in theory can be held in both hands at once (but in practice the arms don't really come together unless it's right in front of his face). Despite the fact each has side pegs (for vehicle mode storage) in addition to regular grip pegs, there's no way to store them in robot mode. Not really a problem for the small gun, which is supposed to be in his hand pretty much all the time, but it'd have been nice if there was a peg hole in the small of the back or something for the rifle. You can just sort of stick it between the panels in the backpack, but it's not the same. The forearm guns of the G1 toy are now on the underside of the forearms rather than the outside (along the ulna, if Transformers had human-like arm bones). But they're on geared hinges so that they can be spread apart to flank the forearms...I suppose that would let them rapid-fire without the barrels heating each other up, or something. The inner sections of the shoulderpads swing down like a rolltop desk of doom, revealing 8-missile pods on each. This also "closes" the shoulderpads so that the wheels are entirely encircled. Twin dual blasters are spring-loaded to pop out during transformation (in theory...in practice I usually have to push them past a barrier) to flank the head, but they can be stowed easily enough. Transformation: A bit of a panel-fiddly transformation. The legs turning into the back end are pretty intuitive, and the front end isn't too bad, but the arms have to be in just the right position for the doors to fit in place, and the usual shellformer panel-massage tricks come in handy. Note, all of the built-in weapons need to be hidden or undeployed for car mode. Warning: the toes are only snapped in, and can pop out when trying to transform the feet. I had to spend a while searching for a toe that flew across the room. At least that showed me what color plastic they were. Vehicle Mode: This is basically a hatchback coupe along the lines of the Mazda 2, although without even the pretense of a back seat. It has a turbocharger hump/vent in the hood, and the front grille looks like it was designed to protect the radiator. The rear window is covered by bolted-on louvres (that could stand to be painted black). So, I'm getting an offroad rally variant feel from it. In addition to the lighter blue, it differs significantly from G1 Skids in that the red and white stripes on the sides don't zigzag. The red and white are only on the door pieces, although the backsides of the toes form a bit of red at the back. An obvious custom job would be to add white stripes to the backs of the toes (white electrical tape might work better than paint). There's bright blue paint on the windshield and side window clear plastic pieces to give proper borders, and it's a good match. The front wheels are pinned on, while the rear wheels are snapped on. However, painting the hubs does help reduce the apparent cheapness of the rear wheels. There are 5mm peg holes on the rear fenders, so that the short gun can be pegged over the left rear wheel, and the rifle over the right rear wheel. Overall: A good toy hampered by really bad foot design. And further hampered by hideously bad distribution that's led to scalper prices of $40 or more...to the point a third party Skids might be cheaper in some cases! If you're lucky enough to see this on the peg, it's worth getting. But it's not worth $40. And hopefully, even if Skids never gets a decent release, Crosscut is waiting in the wings to let people have some version of the mold. Dave Van Domelen, what gun?