Dave's Web Diver Rant: W-11 Pegasion W-12 Ligaon W-14 Daedalion Got Daedalion (Daitalion is the more commonly seen transliteration, but based on the names so far largely coming from Greek myth, I think a Daedalus ref is likely) from ImageAnime for $60, which is reasonable assuming that these don't end up being brought to the U.S. Something I'm told might happen, but I don't have any real confirmation for it. CAPSULES Pegasion: Actually more of a Centaur/Unicorn hybrid, with no Pegasus involved, oops. Good vehicle mode, okay fighter mode, okay head mode, decent weapon mode. Recommended. $20+ Ligaon: Okay lion-man fighter mode, rather bulky helicopter mode, highly kibbled weapon and head modes. Mildly recommended. $20+ Daedalion: A Multimaster. Headmaster Targetmaster sort of thing going on. Big and bulky, but a tad breakable in places. While it's neat being able to do the Headmaster and Targetmaster things, it's a bit expensive and overwrought. Mildly recommended. $60+ RANTS W-11: PEGASION Vehicle Mode: Six-wheeler space buggy Fighter Mode: Unicorn/Centaur Weapon Mode: Combat Claw Element: Void Yeah, while named after the Pegasus, there's no actual Pegasus involved in this toy. A sort of unicorn centaur hybrid instead. Fighter Mode: A somewhat spindly-legged centauroid body plan with a unicorn head, 7" (18cm) tall. Main colors are maroon, white and blue, with grey wheels and a couple silver accents. The arms have swivel shoulders, mid-upper-arm swivels and hinge elbows, for decent poseability. The figure can swivel at the waist. The front legs have two joints each, the rear ones just hip joints. And the tail can move. The front legs are a bit longer than the rear legs, which can make the poses look a little weird. Pegasion's chestplate lights up with the flashing LED, and the infrared LED is hidden inside the chestplate as well. He has two maroon scimitars he can hold in his hands or attach various places on his body. Transformation: Pretty involved, but I've had it long enough that it's not too hard anymore. Only a few bits that can be frustrating, mostly steps that need to be taken before other steps. Vehicle Mode: A sort of six-wheeled space buggy with swords for fenders. 5" (12cm) long, 3.5" (8cm) wide, with six free-rolling plastic wheels. I tend to think of it as a reformatted Strika, with Ligaon as a reformatted Obsidian. The wheelbase is just right for parking Pegasion in the back of Dragon's truck mode. While lacking in gimmicks beyond the LED flashing in the cockpit, it holds together very well, and is one of the less fanciful-looking vehicle modes of the later Web Diver toys. See Daedalion's review for the head and weapon modes. Pegasion does not give Gradion any powers in the game. Overall: While a bit simple, I like this toy. Oh, and I gave it void element because I figure this is a space vehicle rather than one for terran use. }-> W-12: LIGAON Vehicle Mode: Osprey-ish helicopter (does not look level-flight-ish) Fighter Mode: Lion-man Weapon Mode: Bulky forearm with sword. Element: Air I had fairly high hopes for this guy, but they were not realized. Sigh. Fighter Mode: 6" (15cm) tall, a somewhat ugly mess of white, yellow, purple and metallic blue with some translucent blue and yellow. This mode has "Popeye Syndrome" with scrawny upper arms and thighs, but huge forearms and lower legs. He has a huge long head that doesn't hold together very well (it pops open to swap faces for the Daedalion head), and a set of unconvincing wings. His claws are weird zigzags, and he holds his sword very awkqardly. He has lots of joints, but they ratchet so hard that you almost have to break the toy to bend the limbs sometimes. The flashing LED is on the belt buckle. Transformation: Again, I've had this for a while, so it's not too hard to transform anymore. You need to be careful to do things justs right, or you find yourself fighting the hard ratchet joints a lot. The rear assembly holds together a bit better if you swap in the Daedalion alternate face first, as the lion's nose keeps the rear panels (claws) from closing all the way. Vehicle Mode: 7" (18cm) long, it's more or less an Osprey-style helicopter, but with no wing surface to support the tilt-rotor level flight mode. The rotors can tilt, but there's jusst weenie little yellow struts on them, rather than wing surfaces. It might look better if not cursed with the purple/white/yellow color scheme. Weapon and Head modes described below. Ligaon does not give Gradion any powers in the game. Overall: A nice idea, but the execution was bad on many levels. W-14: DAEDALION Vehicle Mode: Submarine, I think Fighter Mode: Knight Weapon Mode: Missile Platform Element: Water The box for this one is even bigger than Dragon's (note: Drag-on is a more correct transliteration, but I tend to use Dragon a lot anyway). 17.5"x13"x7" makes it a tiny bit bigger than Dragon's. The toy is packaged sorta in robot mode, with Titan (the headmaster) separate and the feet not transformed. There's the usual flotilla of twist-ties, of course. Fighter Mode: 11" (28cm) tall at the head, add another inch for the wings on back. Very stocky, 10" (25cm) across at the widest point, the forearms. Colors are silver, black, red and gold, with metallic blue accents (instead of the usual neon green accents). Poseability is okay, with fairly full arm poseability, twisting waist, ratcheting universal hips and ratcheting knees. However, the bulkiness keeps the leg poseability from being very useful. For those of a prurient bent, the vehicle cockpit opens up some rude possibilities, which I'm aware of, so don't email them to me. }-> The chest panels open up either manually or at the touch of an infrared beam from Titan. Or any Web Diver toy. Or your TV remote. Or a sudden burst of sunlight. Fortunately, it has an off switch. When you open the chest, you can remove the axe weapon that stores there. It unfolds and can be placed in either hand, with a poseable thumb locking it down (although it pegs in pretty securely even without that). The weapon is also a missile launcher, and can be activated while in the chest, thanks to a trigger button behind the head that connects to the axe's trigger. The missile fires a few inches, kinda sad. Visually, the black, tan and clear blue weapon looks like an engine block with gear pieces stuck to it and a key for a handle. The four missiles store in non-firing "launchers" on the figure's forearms. The flashing LED is located on Daedalion's headband, and is activated by pressing down the helmet's crest. The infrared LED is on the chin. Titan: The head removes and transforms into a smaller robot called Titan. Titan is 4" (10cm) tall, mainly white, silver and gold with clear blue accents on the helmet and the, well, pelvis. The flashing LED is now on Titan's pelvis, and can be activated by pressing down on top of Titan's helmet, or on the big crest that forms his behind. Poseability is pretty minimal, hips and knees and neck, plus the arms lift up to the sides. He has huge shoulderpads that form the sides of Daedalion's head. His hands can hold the axe weapon, but he falls over when holding it. Unless you get tricky and use Pegasion's swords as a sort of bipod. The only thing that keeps Titan from being a true Headmaster is that Daedalion's vehicle mode has no place for him to pilot. But it's a near thing, especially since Daedalion has extra heads! Pegasion Head: It's a bit tricky getting the chest closed over the Pegasion bits inside, and of course you have to remove the axe from the chest first. The crest formed by Pegasion's horse head brings Daedalion up to 12" (31cm) tall in robot mode. In theory the visor lights up with a flashing LED, but kibble blocks the activation button. The blue in Pegasion does kinda clash with Daedalion's overall look, though. Ligaon Head: There is a LOT more kibble to worry about here, but once you get it in the right places, it's a lot easier to install this head than Pegasion. The white and purple head is more Egyptian than Greek in appearance, what with the pharonic beard, but you can swap in Ligaon's face instead if you want. This head does not increase Daedalion's height. In both cases, the weapons of the headmaster figure add onto the axe, with reasonably good results. And speaking of weapons, each toy can also replace the forearms of Daedalion to make pseudo-Targetmasters. Whichever arm is not replaced can hold the axe. Or the axe can store in the chest if both arms are replaced and you're using Titan as the head. Pegasion Weapon: A fairly nifty claws weapon. However, since it pegs onto the upper arm rather than wrapping around the forearm, you lose the elbow joint. And the weapon mode is long enough that you need to raise the arm a bit to keep the weapon from digging into the tabletop. Ligaon Weapon: Really bulky and kibbled, it has a very unconvincing set of claws to hold the sword weapon from Ligaon. Even worse, the way it links up makes it VERY hard to attach, since the Ligaon-side linkage piece is loose and floppy. It's really not worth bothering with this weapon mode, it's WAY more hassle than it's worth. Daedalion Weapon Mode: Open the chest, install the launcher, move the arms back and stow the hands, re-orient the forearm launchers, and you're done. Not very impressive, and it doesn't add any power to Gradion in the video game. Transformation to Vehicle Mode: This is a real challenge. The instructions aren't as clear as I'd like, they seem to rely heavily on the text for once. And there's a lot of stiff joints involved, and a couple places (especially in the reverse transformation) where you can break things. There's even a special insert on how to reattach the lower legs when they pop off in transformation. However, once you've figured it out once, it's not too hard. I prefer the fighter mode wings to lie flat, though, rather than as a tailplane. Titan can be attached in head mode, but there's no place for him to sit in robot mode as a pilot, as mentioned. Vehicle Mode: If not for the anchors on the sides (which are on robot mode's hips), I'd be tempted to say this was a weird twin-hulled zeppelin of some sort. Heck, it still might be, but the rear propellors to seem more for water than air. The underside guns and swivelable missile launchers (non-firing) make it a threat from many angles. A white "kickstand" lets it sit stably on the table in this mode. Thie mode is 10" (25cm) across, 10" long, and almost as tall if you have the wings up as a tail. Making some estimates based on the cockpit sizes, the vehicle mode would be about 50 meters long, minimum. More if the front cockpit is a two-person rig. In any case, the vehicle mode is rather fanciful and weird, very Sci-Fi with some weird 19th Century motifs. Super Vehicle Mode: Both Pegasion and Ligaon can attach to the bottom of Daedalion's vehicle mode, and the kickstand folds out farther to retain stability. Pegasion makes a good base, but Ligaon has too much kibble in the way and isn't very stable. Two Pegasions underneath Daedalion would look very nice, though. Spaceship Mode: Okay, given that the intended vehicle mode doesn't look like much in specific, it's possible to come up with alternate vehicle modes that look about as good. One that I like involves starting in robot mode, removing the head, stowing the fists, closing the feet, spinning the waist and deploying the kickstand. Oh, and move the shoulders into regular vehicle mode position, there's a 45 degree click joint for that. Leave the front propellors inside the feet, and the final result looks kinda like a space battleship. Transforming the arms into vehicle mod is okay, but leaves too many holes open. Overall: Big, with lots of possible gimmicks, although many depend on getting Ligaon and Pegasion as well. Dave Van Domelen, hopes he didn't leave out anything important, but wanted to get this written before possibly losing home access due to the Excite@Home decision.