Dave's Combiner Wars Rant: Leader Wave 2? Ultra Magnus (Truck) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/LMagnus Also shipping around the same time, but hard to tell for sure because neither has hit any store near me yet, is an extensive retool of Leader Class Jetfire as Thundercracker. I won't be getting Thundercracker even if I see it on the shelf, because $45-50 is a bit much for me to spend on a single retool. CAPSULE $45-50 price point Ultra Magnus: The hands are under-engineered and there's the usual "could use more/different colors" complaints, but otherwise a very solid update of the character, incorporating a bit of comics-originated lore (more or less). It's hard to be "strongly recommended" enthused by a $45 toy that feels like a $30 toy thanks to inflation skewing my perceptions, but it's definitely at least Recommended. RANT Packaging: Same basic packaging as Armada Megatron. The art on the side shows Minimus Ambus charging into battle ahead of Ultra Magnus, which combines with the wording of the bio note to suggest that Minimus is more of a mobile life support unit for the original, rather than wearing the original's armor as in the comics. (In the comics, when Ultra Magnus died, Tyrest chose Ambus to wear the super armor and pretend to be a didn't- actually-die Ultra Magnus. The "Loadbearer" special power is an explanation of why they don't all grab giant power suits...most sparks can't stand the strain of running the armor, so only a particular kind of Point-One-Percenter can power up via super armor.) AUTOBOT: ULTRA MAGNUS Altmode: Truck Partner: MINIMUS AMBUS Partner Altmode: Cybertronian car Transformation Difficulty: 25 steps Previous Name Use: (Ultra Magnus) A lot, (Minimus Ambus) No. Previous Mold Use: None Weapon: Obsessive Attention to the Rules Function: Duly Appointed Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord Motto: "I tried smiling once. I didn't care for it." The legend of ULTRA MAGNUS is exceeded only by the legend of OPTIMUS PRIME. When ULTRA MAGNUS was lost, the forces of justice would not let a warrior of his caliber fall. MINIMUS AMBUS, using the power of his rare loadbearer spark, enables ULTRA MAGNUS to fight on. Packaging: A bit unsymmetric, as he barely fits inside the box. So one of his shoulder rocket launchers is attached (the right one), while the other is held into a corner of the blister with a tie. One rifle is in his hand (again, the right), while the other is held into the blister without a tie. Minimus Ambus is held into the blister with no tie in vehicle mode. One rattan string holds a plastic shield over the chest and connects through the back of the tray. Six more ties help hold the main robot into the blister. The instructions are loose behind the cardboard tray. The trading card art is the same as the art on the side panel, showing Ambus and Magnus in action together. The robot feet are pushed back to fit inside the box, and need to be pulled forward. Robot Mode: Other than a few concessions to reality and some minor tweaks (like the detailing on the kneecaps having more of a <|> than a >|< pattern), this mold is astonishingly close to the current IDW comics design of Ultra Magnus. As with almost every Hasbro toy, it could stand to have a few more factory paint apps, and some of the plastic colors are "wrong" (i.e. the thighs are usually red in the comic, but are white here), which means people will inevitably turn their noses up at this version and pay double for the Takara version...or they would if Minimus Ambus wasn't redeco'ed as Alpha Trion for that version. I'll take white thighs and Minimus Ambus, thanks. Now, some of the match is probably a case of the artist getting to see the approved mold in advance and adjusting things to agree, but it's still pretty impressive. Random detail comment: there's details on the hips that look like crossed holster belts. Sheriff Magnus. 8.75" (22cm) tall at the head, 10.5" (26.5cm) to the tops of the shoulder pylons, done up in the classic red/white/blue with bits of silver and black. The guns and all ten wheels are black plastic. The head, chestplate, shoulders, forearm armor, feet, boot cores, and boot sides are a metalswirled medium blue. The torso core and the backs of the boots are bright red plastic. Everything else is a sort of pearl white. The non-firing missile tips on the shoulder launchers, some trapezoids on the shins, and parts of the abdomen are painted red. I'm not sure if they're two different shades, or if red on blue just ends up looking darker than red on white. The face, flanks, antennae, smokestacks flanking the head, and some OO-shaped bits on the chest and kneecaps are painted silver. The eyes are metallic light blue, the not-really-eyes on the chest are dark gunmetal, and the headlights on the flanks are painted amber. A red on silver Autobot symbol is printed on the left pec. The head turns smoothly, and is mounted in such a way that it can turn even when Minimus Ambus's head is stuck up inside it. There's a hinge to let you lift the helmet up to reveal the tiny head inside. The chestplate folds down and the revealed truck cab halves fold out to the sides to reveal Minimus Ambus's piloting compartment, which has little pegs for his hands to grab onto. The waist does not turn. The shoulders have soft-ratcheting swivels at their root, then ratchet out to the sides (with a panel on the shoulder hinged to get out of the way if needed). Smooth upper arm swivels, ratcheting hinge elbows. No wrist joint, but the hands are hinged mitten- style to open up. Unfortunately, this hinge isn't very stiff, and there's no palm pegs or slots to keep the guns in place, so the guns keep falling out of my Magnus's hands (yes, I will be dealing with that later, but it's a problem out of the box). There are slots in the forearm armor to let things held in the hand extend below it. Ratcheting universal joint hips, smooth mid-thigh swivels, ratchet hinge knees. The feet are on dual-hinge struts that are ratcheted, but the range of motion is less than the toy really needs for stability. I tried folding the red panels down to use as heel spurs, but they way they're hinged keeps them from doing much good. There's 5mm peg holes on the shoulders (intended for the missile launchers), near the tops of the boot outsides, and down at the bottoms. Both guns are single pieces of black plastic. One is a stock-less rifle not modeled on the G1 figure's weapon. The other is "eh, put a grip on it and we can call it a gun" but is really meant to be the haft of the Magnus Hammer. Both are meant to be held by large non-standard grips, each of which has tiny vestigal pegs that might have been intended to plug into the palm. But there's no peg holes in Magnus's palms (and I'm reluctant to try drilling my own). The regular rifle has a 5mm peg on the back to plug into the muzzle of the haft-gun to make a longer haft. The haft-gun has 5mm peg holes on struts on either side, and the shoulder missile launchers peg onto these to make the faces of the hammer mode. The regular rifle also has a 5mm peg on one side so it can attach to the boot in either mode, and the haft gun has a 5mm peg on top for the same purpose. Each gun has a trigger on the main grip, and the hands are molded with the index figure in "on a trigger" position, which helps a little for stability, but not enough. If you stow the head, the chest detailing looks enough like a face to make this a credible "Gunmen" mode a la Gurren Lagann. For additional weirdness, the arms can be extended by pulling them down through the shoulders. A stability note: if you get all the tabs into their slots, this is a very stable robot mode, despite its hollowness. But if any aren't in the right place, it can go floppy FAST. And despite the hollowness, only the backs of the thighs really look hollow, they managed to hide most of it. Transformation: Fairly intuitive, but you have to make sure to undo all those nicely stable tabs first, and some of them are non-obvious. The chest core becomes the cab, but does some interesting twisting and turning along the way, and the wheel backpack pulls forward. The first time I transformed it took a while, but once I knew where all the tabs were, it was pretty quick thereafter. Oh, and make sure you remove the missile launchers from the shoulders, as the outer faces of the shoulders peg together. New peg holes are uncovered on the shoulder pieces for attaching the launchers in vehicle mode. Getting it back to robot mode is a bit of a struggle around the chestplate, which is held VERY solidly into the lower deck. Vehicle Mode: This is a giant car carrier truck. Just in case you don't think it's big enough based on the narrow cab windows, there's ladders all over this thing, and the cab has a tiny door on each side at the top of a ladder. If the door is 2m tall, then the toy is about 1:144 scale. People would also fit inside details molded on the sides of the rear pylons (boots), making this sort of a rolling HQ for a human alliance or something (redeco as a Rescue Bots mobile HQ!). About the only iffy detail is the backside of the chestplate forming part of the lower deck. In keeping with G1, the cab ie entirely white with some silver, while the trailer is a mix of colors. 10.75" (27.5cm) long, or about 130 feet (40m) at scale. The wheels alone are about twice as tall as a person. The cab has silver paint on the grille and bumper, the smokestacks, and a stripe along each side. The windows are dark gunmetal. There's a small red Autobot symbol printed on the grille, on a segment that the opening seam zigs around. The only other paint visible in this mode are the details on the shins (now the back end) and the missile launchers' warheads. The connector between cab and trailer swivels smoothly, but does not detach. (You have to unscrew a piece if you want to separate them.) The ten wheels roll well. There's two 5mm peg holes on the rear pylons (the same ones from robot mode boots), and on on each side of the tops of the front pylons. No pegs or peg holes on top, and the smokestacks are a bit over 4mm in diameter so not usable for attaching weapons. If you fold down the shins, they form a ramp to let cars no wider than 2.5" (6.5cm) wide drive up into the lower deck. Deluxes are generally not going to make it in, but it's just about right for most of the Legends class cars and trucks. Minimus Ambus: One thing to note is that when he first was revealed to be a smaller bot in armor was that he was actually a dude inside another dude, pretending to be yet another dude. There was what on this scale would have been a Legends-scale robot suit as an intermediate step, used in a "he's dead!/wait, he's not!" fake-out. In more recent comics, though, they don't seem to have brought that suit back, and it's just tiny Minimus Ambus in the Magnus Armor. That said, a custom job on a Tailgate might work if you want the medium version around. At 2" (5cm) tall, the robot is closer in spirit to original Micromasters or the WST line, but with modern ball-jointed articulation. The mold detail is decent, but you basically need wargaming miniatures painting skills to get colors to bring it out...a factory paint job has no real chance, even if it wasn't very limited in the number of apps. All made of pearly white plastic, there's chartreuse paint on the shins, center chest and face. The mustache and beard, as well as the collar, are a forest green paint. The eyes are red, and the toes are the same dark gunmetal as the not-eyes on Magnus. The shoulders and hips are ball joints, the knees are hinges. The feet are a bit short, and it's hard to get the figure to stay standing unless an arm is raised forwards. Definitely designed more for sitting in the chest compartment than standing on its own. The hands have 1/16" (about 1.5mm) peg holes for grabbing onto pegs in the Magnus Armor chest compartment. Transformation has the backpack with arms attached to it rise up on a fairly stiff strut, then the legs bend double at the knees and the arms peg onto the sides. The boots form the hood of the vehicle mode. On mine, the boots don't stay lined up flush with the roof very well. Vehicle mode is a sort of luxury hovercar, rather than the more truck-like altmode he tends to use in the comics. The hood is vented like Streetwise's, and there's a spoiler tail. No wheels, there's just little tabs under the rear fenders and one in the front center underside to rest on and give the vauge impression of being a hoverspeeder. 1.75" (4.5cm) long, it appears to be about the same scale as the Magnus vehicle mode (i.e. someone who could get into the doors on the Magnus cab would also be the right size to ride inside Minimus Ambus). The toes are the front windows, and the dark gunmetal continues around to the sides. No rear window, molded or painted. There's a red Autobot symbol printed on the roof. His fit inside the chest compartment is very snug, as in "if you try painting more details on the toy, the paint will probably scrape off" snug. The head's safe from scraping, though. Getting him out can be tricky too, as the boots can lock in position. There's no official place for him to rest securely in vehicle mode, since the operator's compartment in the chest has to hold Ultra Magnus's head. I found that the little tabs on the "rear wheel" parts of Minimus Ambus's vehicle mode fit fairly securely between raised parts at the front top of the trailer, though. Not enough to stay on while the toy is turned upside down, but enough to handle a 90 degree tilt to either side. Comparison to City Commander: A few months ago, while looking for something else, I opened the boxes where my City Commander set (a gift from a friend who had grown tired of it) and my Classics Ultra Magnus (boxed up years before I got the City Commander) were stored, and put it together. While City Commander does look pretty decent aside from the leftovers cannon, it suffers from depending on the joints of the smaller toy inside. It has more heft than the new Ultra Magnus, but is shorter and stumpier in proportions. I definitely prefer this new toy, although before I put City Commander away I may steal his rifle for Ultra Magnus (it's a retangular peg that might be holdable by Magnus once I stiffen the hand joints). Overall: Really, my only significant complaints are the usual "not enough paint," the heel issue, and the hand design. They really should have followed through with some sort of pegs to keep the guns in the hands. Dave Van Domelen, back to PRiD next while I wait for Viper to show up and complete Wave 3 of Legends.