Dave's RobotMasters Rant RM-24: Reverse Convoy Got these from Action-HQ as part of their pre-order deal. CAPSULE Reverse Convoy: A good quality remold, nice bold colors and cool new gimmicks. Strongly recommended ignoring the fact that being an import means it costs more. $22.40 after S&H from Action-HQ.com. RANT Gonna do a full review here, rather than refer you to reviews of previous molds. This is in part because my original Hero Prime review was so long ago that I wasn't being very thorough, but mostly because the core of the toy has been remolded and made cooler. Background: This mold first appeared as Hero Megatron (sometimes called Combat Hero Megatron because it sounds better and because the name was used in early press, but later pushed back for a project that never got made). The main gimmicks of the Hero toys were super-poseability (for the day) and pneumatic missile launchers where you slam down on a bellows to fire the missile. The mold was reused as RiD Bludgeon (a Kay Bee exclusive), to not so good effect: it was really floppy and the yellow/green color combo was on the ugly side. Reverse Convoy has taken the entire missile launcher assembly and replaced it with a simple spring-based launcher, a head-swap gimmick and a different hand weapon (the old rifle is simply gone, although its peg hole on the turret/shoulder is still present). The forearm clips have been left on, although there's no missiles for them to hold anymore. Packaging: Standard RobotMasters "bubble in a box" deal. The back has pictures showing that the toy has two heads, but doesn't reveal how that trick works. The background card inside the box has two cut-them-out- yourself trading cards, one with each head. The Megatron-headed one is named Rebirth Megatron. There's nothing on the backs of the cards. The outer bubble has the techspecs printed in white, and all in English (unlike the specs on the back of the box). As with all RobotMasters, the techspecs are abbreviated to just Rank, Power, Defense, Stamina and Speed (all 10 except for 8 Speed). Six twist-ties hold Reverse Convoy (in robot mode) into the inner bubble, plus one more tie each for his missile and his rocket pod. The instructions use B&W photos of the actual toy, and are pretty clear, not that it's a terribly complicated transformation. The catalog does not have a comic in it this time around, instead there's a Convoy retrospective, showing all the Convoys from 1985 to the present, plus one or two non-Convoy Cybertron leaders like Fortress Maximus and Dai Atlas. Robot Mode: Starting with this, since it's packaged in this mode. 6" (15cm) tall at the head, the shoulder cannon rises a bit above that. Upper torso, main head, missile, upper arms, outer parts of the lower arms, and the boots are a bright cobalt blue. Forearms, pelvis and thighs are a sort of sandstone light tan. The abdomen piece is also sandstone plastic, but painted all silver on the front and sides. The tank treads are dark gray, while the missile launcher, "bib", little rolling wheels hidden in the treads and rocket pod are medium gray. Not sure what color plastic the Megatron head is, as it's all painted silver with red eyes, purple lips and white teeth. There's numerous silver paint apps on the shoulders, knees and Convoy's face. Convoy's forehead tablet is red, and there's also red bits on his waist. The rocket pod rocket tips are pale metallic gold [Later correction: they're silver, I had bad lighting], Convoy's eyes are orange, and there's a largish (1cm wide) Autobot symbol tampographed on the bib piece in front of Convoy's head. There's a little projection in front of Megatron's head with a teeeeeny little Decepticon symbol (2.5mm wide). The feet are painted black. Both heads are on very limited ball joints, they really just turn with a tiny bit of play. The shoulders are universal joints, as are the elbows (which can bend to 90 degrees). The waist turns stiffly, the hips look like ball joints at first, but are actually universal joints: the forward/back joint is very loosely ratcheting, while the side to side joints are free. The knees are stiff hinges which can bend 180 degrees thanks to being transformation joints. There are no heel spurs, which is a shame, they'd really help the design. I suppose they could only make so many mold changes. The shoulder cannon ratchets between two positions: straight forward and elevated 30 degrees. Stability is pretty good, although the L-shaped footprint with no rear inner support means that the feet don't always support the figure like you think they should. One-legged poses are still possible, though, and stable enough to remain standing on a wobbly computer desk as I type. A standard standing pose needs to be leaned back a click at the hips because of the big chest. The fists and shoulder peghole are 5mm in diameter, nice for reusing Energon weaponry or other RobotMasters clear accessories. His hand weapon is a six-rocket pod with a couple of underslung hexagonal blaster barrels. It can be held in either hand, pegged to the shoulder, or mounted on the back of the missile launcher. The launcher cannot move with the rocket pod attached, however. Each forearm has a panel that can fold out, as mentioned above. And while there's no missiles to go with this, it's just the right size to have Reverse Convoy hold a Sharpie marker or other cylinders in the half inch (12-13mm) diameter range. Mmmm, marker fumes. The missile can be loaded in any orientation that will fit, which is always nice. It's irritating when a missile can go in most of the way in any orientation, but then stops if you guessed wrong. Pulling back on the barrel a la Armada Megatron fires it, and generates possible lewd Twisted Toyfare Theater jokes. It fires about half a meter straight up, a good spring strength. Strong enough to go somewhere, not so strong you lose it under the couch the first time you fire it. Okay, enough teasing, here's the main gimmick. If you fold Convoy's head back into the chest, Megatron's head can be swung out of storage behind the missile launcher and rotated into position hovering a bit above the neck. It doesn't lock down, so there's a bit of a disconcerting floaty effect, but only a bit. This is NOT the original Megatron head from the Hero Megatron toy, although that might have worked with minimal changes. I'm guessing it was remolded mostly so that it would blend in with the cannon a little better and no be blatant. It has some similarities to Super Megatron from the Battle Stars series, but seems to be largely a new interpretation. Transformation: Stow whatever head you're using, and slide the cannon over to the center. Bend both legs all the way at the knees, then forward at the hips, so it's like he's kneeling. Fold up at the joint between upper and lower torso, fiddling back and forth to get the robot toes over the Decepticon symbol tab on Megatron's head piece. Then the robot arms just fold up to become the sides of the turret. The rocket pod now plugs onto the back of the cannon to fill the gap left by the removal of the pneum bellows. The pod can either be fully stowed, partially or fully deployed without making the turret look hollow. Vehicle Mode: The body of the tank is 5.5" (14cm) long and 2.75" (7cm) wide. It's almost entirely bright cobalt blue with silver accents and dark gray treads, plus the cannon and rocket pod are medium gray. All of the sandstone bits are robot parts, and unless you look from underneath, the only sandstone visible is the robot fists, which are only visible from behind. Because of the way the turret is made, there's really no way they could have had it turn. The barrel cannot elevate with the rocket pod attached, but the vehicle looks dumb without the rocket pod. So this is essentially an unposeable mode. There's a 5mm peg hole at the right front of the turret, originally for Megatron's rifle, but now it can be used to borrow weapons from others. The little wheels on the underside roll very well. The robot arms do not lock into place, something that could have been fixed by remolding the shins to have dead Powerlinx hardpoints that the robot fists could grab onto. But the joints are stiff enough that the turret doesn't just fall apart on its own, as happened with some Bludgeons. Overall: This mold was originally used for a $15 toy, although without the pump missiles one could argue it's closer to modern Deluxes. Either way, it's a good mold and I paid a reasonable price for it (especially considering that Deluxes in Japan generally cost closer to $20 depending on the exchange rate). And the changes make it worth getting even for those who have one or both of the previous versions. Dave Van Domelen, also got RM-13 Smokesniper a few weeks ago, but hasn't felt like reviewing it. It's nice, if a touch floppy.