Dave's BW Neo Rant:

     Killerpunch
     Corahda

     Recently ordered a bunch of Beast Wars Neo toys from astrotoys.com, and
they arrived the day I left for San Antonio (D'oh!), but I'm finally getting
around to reviewing them.  Archadis and Mach Kick will follow tomorrow or
Saturday as I get time.

CAPSULES

     Killerpunch: Very nice beast mode, interesting head-launch gimmick,
remolding deals with a lot of the problems his predecessor Guiledart suffered
from (but not all of them).  Recommended.  
     Corahda: Not a bad snake mode, okay weapon mode and robot mode.  Mildly
recommended.  

RANTS

DESTRON: Killerpunch
Beast Mode: Styracosaur

STR 8  INT 7  SPD 7  END 9  RNK 6  COUR 8  FRP 6  SKL 7  Avg 7.25

     Killerpunch is the first reuse of a BW Neo design, but not a terribly
surprising one...after all, there's lotsa different Ceratopsids that
Guiledart could be modded into.  To Takara's credit, this isn't just a minor
remold with the head swapped out.  Many features have been remolded in ways
both major (the head, the tail-sword) and minor (new pattern on the hide, no
missile rack).

     Beast Mode: 8" (20cm) long from snout to tail tip, 4" (10cm) tall at the
frill.  His main color is a sort of greyish lavender with blue details and
bone-colored beak, horn and frill spikes.  His underside has been airbrushed
bone color as well.  All four legs can move at the hip to varying degrees,
but that's the extent of his poseability.  While he has the flip-down meaty
gobbet panels inherited from Guiledart, Killerpunch does not have a full
camoflage mode, lacking the dead eyes gimmick and the wounded tail.  The
gimmick he does have, however, is that his head launches.  About six inches
(15cm) on a good day, since it's rather large.  Underneath, he has a spare
head with a more mechanical look, and his spark crystal becomes visible on
his lower jaw.  Oddly, Killerpunch doesn't come with any other missiles,
since he can fire Guiledart's missiles.  Possibly they dropped the missiles
because there was nowhere to store them (the remodeled head removed some of
the storage space).

     Transformation: Same as Guiledart's, it's not too complex, but it's made
difficult by the profusion of panels that get in the way.  However, the lack
of missiles does remove one source of frustration, and being able to remove
the bulk of the head helps make things easier.  One significant change is
that the beast head need not be left on the robot's right hand, but instead
can be stored on the back.

     Robot Mode: 4.5" (12cm) tall, 5" (13cm) counting the frill when the
beast head is stored on his back.  His torso molding is the same as
Guiledart's, but in different colors.  His head is new, and looks like a
samurai helmet with styracosaur motifs.  His tail becomes a rather nifty axe,
but since he still can't raise his left arm due to the massive shoulderpad,
it's not a weapon he can actually use.  The headless right arm ends in a
serviceable claw.

     Overall: While I like Guiledart's colors better and he has the nifty
dead head gimmick, Killerpunch does have a number of other points on his
cousin, and is a slightly better toy.  If you want a transforming Ceratopsid
and can only afford one, get Killerpunch.


CYBERTRON: Corahda
Beast Mode: Cobra

STR 6  INT 6  SPD 5  END 7  RNK 7  COUR 7  FRP 9  SKL 7  Avg 6.75

     One of the first batch of BWNeo that I decided to pass on the first time
around (along with Longrack), I added him to my cart on a whim when shopping
at Astrotoys.

     Beast Mode: Stretched out all the way, he's 13.5" (34cm) long, but most
of that is tail.  In a "standing" position, he's about 4" (10cm) tall.  His
"hood" portion is rather thick and bulky, since this is where most of his
robot mode is stuck.  A bit out of proportion for a cobra, but a commendable
effort nonetheless.  The first five segments of his tail are ball-jointed and
rather stiff, and you can keep him standing up on a reasonably flat surface.
The last eight segments are loose, and built along the same principle as
those plastic wiggly snake toys you can find in the cheap toy section.
Loosely mounted, the tail can whip back and forth with a faint clacking
sound.  Oddly, there's a sort of bony spur at the end of the tail.  The body
is a very dark green with silver and gold accents, plus red and yellow "eye"
patterns on the hood.  The rigid tail sections are also dark green.  The four
floppy segments nearest the body are dark metallic blue and the final four
segments are a lighter metallic blue.  Pushing down on a panel near the top
of the hood will make Corahda's jaw pop open as you push down on the bulb of
a water squirt weapon.  The weapon fires a stream, not a mist.

     Weapon Mode: Pull out the robot legs, pop up the snake head and pull out
the squirtgun and you get a sort of emplacement for smaller Cybertrons to
fire from behind.  It's not the world's greatest third mode, but it beats the
Stampy Scissors hands down.

     Transformation: Fairly simple, rotate the robot torso and pull out the
legs, then pop up the head and position the arms (one of which is the tail,
and the other holds the squirtgun).  There's a little difficulty in getting
things past each other, and the arms never quite feel like they're locked
into the proper positions.  Oops, and as I just found out, the torso is
attached by a ball and socket joint, and can pop off.  This makes
transformation easier, actually.  }->

     Robot Mode: 5.5" (14cm) tall, Corahda's kinda halfway between cowboy
with serape/shawl and a conquistador.  Either way, his motif places him
firmly at odds with Saberback's Amerind/Aztec look.  He holds together pretty
well, with stiff joints and some pegs holding bits in place, although as
mentioned above, his arms don't really snap into anything.  His left shoulder
is highly limited in motion (and, incidentally, holds his spark), but the
universal joint on the elbow helps a little with that.  His right arm is his
snake tail, with two segments as upper arm, two segments as forearm and the
remaining eight as a whiphand (one segment is hidden under the shoulders).
The ball joint between upper and lower arm is on the other side of the joint,
so it can bend like an elbow...albeit an elbow a bit low on the arm.  Hips,
knees and ankles are all stiff ball joints.

     Overall: Does about as well as possible with a snake mode, and has some
interesting bits.  But limitations of the form and of the transformation
hinder the play value of this toy.

     Dave Van Domelen, has Killerpunch hanging out with Guiledart on one side
of his desk, and Corahda and Saberback in combat on the other side over by
the debris field of semi-important papers....