Dave's Transformers Rant: Fast Action Battlers Wave 1

     Starscream 
     Brawl
     Autobot Ratchet
     Optimus Prime (not reviewed)
     Ironhide (guest reviews at bottom)
     Autobot Jazz (not reviewed)

     Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/FAB1

     A simplified, almost Go-Bot-ish line, I decided to only get a couple.
Might get others later, especially if on clearance.  I got Starscream because
I heard some good things about it from a sighter, and Brawl because he
doesn't get enough love.
     Update 6/10/07: Wonkimus Major said I could open Ratchet before sending
it on.
     Update 7/21: Justin Anderson sent guest comments on Ironhide, see the
bottom of the file.
     Update 8/27: Wonkimus Major bought the Japanese version of Ironhide and
sent along a review, appended to the bottom.  Interesting for how the line is
positioned in Japan.


CAPSULES

     Starscream: Sturdy fairly smooth transformation, okay gimmick, minimal
poseability in robot mode.  Mildly recommended, mainly for smaller kids.
$9.99 at Target.
     Brawl: Transformation requires some excessive force with the legs, and
has some partformery nature.  Pretty good robot mode given the design
philosophy restrictions, decent vehicle mode.  Recommended.  $9.99 at Target.
     Autobot Ratchet: Somewhat floppy robot mode, solid vehicle mode,
automorphing requires a few tries to get the hang of.  A decent amount of
thought was put into this design that seems to be missing from the two I
bought.  Recommended for kids, mildly otherwise.  $9.99 at Target.


RANTS

     Packaging: Kiddie line trade dress, but the same rough shape as the
regular Deluxes.  The blisters are more flat-fronted with a little molding
for the shape of the card insert between blister pieces.  The insert has a
cartoony drawing of the character inside, the name, and the subline logo.
Each character has an epithet, like "Double Missile Decepticon Brawl".  The
logo and name are repeated on the right side of the insert, the drawing wraps
around to the left.  The bottom of the insert has some legalese and co-sells
for three others in the assortment.  
     The front of the cardback itself has a yellow band in place of the
swoosh the regular Deluxes use to say "Automorph Technology" or whatnot.  In
the upper left is the Ages 4+ warning and the Level 2 conversion difficulty
("Quick Conversion").  The top center has the movie TF logo, and the upper
right has a lighter red faction symbol on the dark red background.
     The back of the card has photos of both modes, a red on yellow callout
extolling some gimmick of the toy, a swirl arrow pattern with "Quick
conversion ROBOT TO VEHICLE!", and names of the modes (licensed where
relevant).  The bottom half has the techspecs, bio note, and the following
copy:
     "Hidden among us, alien machines with the awesome ability to change from
one form to another fight their ancient battle for the AllSpark.  They are...
THE TRANSFORMERS!"
     The techspecs have simple names and numbers in circles, no bars of
strings of beads or other graphical representations.  While the numbers seem
to be the same as those on other versions of the toys, the bio notes are new.
     Along the very bottom of the card are the various ownership logos,
including licensor if relevant.
     Unlike the regular deluxes, these have secondary tabs wrapping around
the card to secure the inner tray, separately taped.  Also, instead of saying
"reverse order of instructions" anywhere, the instructions are printed on
both sides, giving both robot to vehicle and vehicle to robot.  No catalogs
in the ones I got.
     Also, unlike regular Deluxes, these are all packaged in robot mode.
This is good for the older consumer, because it lets you see whether the
robot mode is too lame for your tastes before purchase.  :)

     Design Philosophy: These are, as the packaging suggests, little kid
versions of the toys.  Consider them to be like the Go-Bot line, although
pitched a little bit older.  The proportions are a little chibi, but not
fully.  Poseability is low and durability higher than regular Deluxes.
     Much, but not all, of the transformation, is Automorphing on these,
hence "fast action".  Each also has some sort of spring-loaded attack action
as far as I can tell, beyond just missiles, hence "battler".  Mind you, the
presumption of melee spring-loaded attacks is based on two toys, but hey.   
     Oh, and some of these "Level 2" transformations are more complex than
"Level 3" Scorponok's.  :)


BATTLE BLADE STARSCREAM
Altmode: F-22 Raptor
Licensor: Lockheed-Martin
Package call-out: "Snap out battle blade!"

     STARSCREAM prefers to attack from the sky, where none of the AUTOBOTS
can reach him, but the skies of Earth are awfully crowded with humans and
their ridiculous machines.  That's all right though; there are some fights
where a missile just isn't personal enough.  That's why he had the
retractable battle blades installed.  He loves to see the look of fear in
AUTOBOT eyes when he snaps out his razor sharp energy blades.

STR 6  INT 9  SPD 10  END 7  RNK 8  COUR 4  FRB 7  SKL 9  Avg 7.5

     6 twist-ties, 2 rubber bands (one on arm, one on upper body and head).
     
     Robot Mode: 6" (15cm) tall, made of light and medium "french gray"
(brownish gray) plastics, plus a light cool gray on the battle blade and some
of the connector struts.  There's a black wash on the arms and lower legs to
bring out the movie-style tech detailing.  Bombs molded into the palms of
each hand are painted dark copper.  There's black paint on the sunken bits of
the face, with silver pupils on the eyes and gold on the mouth-ish area.  The
chest is made from the front section of the airplane mode, and has a black
cockpit and a black Decepticon symbol up at the top center.  There's light
gray paint on the leading edges of the nose and wingsections.
     The head turns a little.  The left arm has a swivel shoulder, the hips
are ball joints, and the ankles (he has digitigrade "chicken legs") are
hinges.  Pressing a button on the outside of the right shoulder makes the
battle blade spring down, while pressing a button on top of the right
shoulder makes the right arm spring up.  In other words, sturdy but brickish,
and the right arm poseability is replaced with spring gimmicks.

     Transformation: Mainly if you pull up and out on the nose/chest, the
plane pieces all fold together.  However, it's usually not totally smooth,
requiring some help along the way.  Then, all that remains is to fold the
legs back and bring down the nosewheel.  You can also leave the legs halfway
back for a gerwalk mode.

     Vehicle Mode: Well, it's an F-22 Raptor with big bird legs hanging off
the bottom and some hands sticking out the jet intakes.  Just the airplane
part is 6" (15cm) long, but add an inch for the feet sticking out the back.
Wingspan is 5.25" (13.5cm).  It's a somewhat chibi deformation of the Raptor
design, but the molding is good and all the various stealth-enhancing zigzags
are in place.
     No gimmicks in this mode, and the arms are fully enclosed by jet bits.
If it were easier to pop the legs off I might do that, to enhance the looks
of this form.

     Overall: Seems sturdy enough to survive a small child's play, but the
novelty of the "I cutchoo, man!" gimmick wears off pretty quickly, and it's
not really cute enough to appeal to Go-Bot collectors.


DOUBLE MISSILE DECEPTICON BRAWL
Altmode: Tank
Licensor: None
Package Call-out: Launch 2 missiles!

     DECEPTICON BRAWL lives to blow stuff up.  Big and mean, he's only happy
when his face is being warmed by the heat of explosions.  He serves his
leader - the evil MEGATRON - without question, and will destroy anything that
gets in his way.  His least favorite thing about the AUTOBOTS is that there
just aren't enough of them left to pound with a double blast from his
shoulder cannon.

STR 8  INT 3  SPD 3  END 9  RNK 5  COUR 9  FRB 9  SKL 3  Avg 6.125

     1 twist-tie for missiles, 3 for robot.  The secondary turret isn't
securely connected, but 2 rubber bands hold the mine-clearing teeth in place.

     Robot Mode: 5.5" (14cm) tall at the head, 6.75" (17cm) at the tops of
the secondary turret cannons.  The forearms, pelvis, tread pieces, mineteeth,
shins, secondary turret and some connective bits are forest green plastic.
The upper arms and feet are light gray.  The rest of he toy is olive green
plastic.  There's a lot of forest green wash, black paint on the treads,
olive paint on some of the forest green bits to match up in vehicle mode, and
silver on the left arm blades.  The face is a mix of black, silver and gold
paint, with red eyes.  There's also silver paint on the teeth of the mine-
clearing bits.  A black Decepticon symbol is printed on the chest.
     This mode looks quite a lot like the regular Deluxe version, albeit
chibified, with one important exception: the main gun barrel is on the left
arm, not the right.  The right arm gets a quadgun sort of thing instead.
Also, the official positioning of the mineteeth has them pointing towards
each other rather than down, which I prefer.
     The shoulders are swiveled, twice.  You can either move the whole arm,
turret armor pieces and all, or just lift the arm inside out.  Given that the
main gun is attached to the turret armor, you have to use the main shoulder
to pose it, but the right arm looks better separated from the armor.  The
hands are claws, but don't have to hold anything.  The waist turns,
ratcheting in one direction and being spring-loaded in the other (see
below).  The head is on a ball joint, as are the hips.  The knees are stiff
hinges, and the ankles are also hinged for transformation.  Some pretty
dynamic poses are possible.  The secondary turret is pegged to the back, with
the rocket pods on balljointed struts.  The figure does need to be leaning
back a little at the hips to stand stably, as the toes aren't long enough to
compensate for some front-heaviness.
     Twisting the waist in a vector-up direction (so that the left arm is
pulled back) up to 90 degrees lets it spring back forward in a punching
action.  The rocket pods have springs in them so you can insert Q-tip-
looking missiles, pull back and release 'em.  The missiles do not lock into
place, and will fall out easily if the figure is tipped the wrong way.  They
also don't fire very far, so I'd just stick 'em in storage somewhere and not
bother.  

     Transformation: Remove the secondary turret and transform it
separately.  It'll attach to an entirely different peg in vehicle mode.
Lifting up the chest will make most of the front end transform (just as with
the regular Deluxe) and will bring the arms around most of the way, but you
have to snap them together yourself.  The legs transform in a pretty standard
tank robot manner, but require some wrestling to get out of vehicle mode.

     Vehicle Mode: See the regular Deluxe version review for discussion of
exactly what sort of vehicle Brawl is, and what I mean by "secondary
turret".  Just the body, ignoring main gun or mineclearers, is 4.75" (12cm)
long.  Adding in the gun brings it to 6" (15cm).  Aside from the rocket pods
being oversize, it's really not very deformed in proportions.  There's a
forest green camo pattern on the olive plastic, and an olive camo pattern on
the forest green secondary turret.  There's also a silver Decepticon symbol
on the secondary turret.
     The secondary turret is pegged on, so spins easily, but also falls off.
The rocket pods are on swivels, and the mineclearing teeth on ball joints.
The main turret, however, cannot turn.  The toy rolls along on four little
wheels inside the treads.  
     There's some large seams around the front of the turret and a hole in
the back of the turret showing the forearm weapons, but otherwise it's pretty
kibble-free.

     Overall: The missile launchers are a waste of plastic, and the secondary
turret likely to be lost pretty quickly by the smaller kids this is aimed at,
but otherwise this is a well done toy.  It's almost better than the regular
Deluxe.  


     I got Autobot Ratchet for Wonkimus Major, so I copied down the stats and
made some in-package-observations notes before sending it to him.

AXE ATTACK AUTOBOT RATCHET
Altmode: Hummer H2
Licensor: GM
Package Call-out: "Blasting axe attack!"

     On a team made up only of the most courageous and daring warriors from
the planet CYBERTRON, AUTOBOT RATCHET is probably the bravest.  As the team's
medic, he will charge across a blazing battlefield, dodging laser fire and
missiles, to reach an injured friend.  He can't bear to see suffering, so
even as he defends himself with his battle axe, he readies his surgical tools
to heal any damage done!

STR 4  INT 9  SPD 6  END 9  RNK 5  COUR 10  FRB 3  SKL 10  Avg 7

     In the same yellow-green as the Legends and Voyager versions, despite
the fact that all the movie pictures I've seen of Ratchet are in a more
sedate yellow.  The "axe" barely looks like any sort of melee weapon, and
fires a clear blue missile that the package art makes clear is intended to be
a water blast.  Transformation looks like the head is stowed under the front
end, and in general turns the vehicle upside down in the process of going to
robot mode. 

Update:

     5 twist-ties on the figure, none on the missile.  2 rubber bands keep
the chest from rotating, and one holds the left arm's wrist weapon in place.

     Robot Mode: 6.25" (16cm) tall with a shoulderspan of 6" (15cm).  Mostly
made of a chartreuse plastic, with black plastic on the wheels, chest,
abdomen, right forearm, left forearm's minigun pod and some connective bits.
His missile is made of clear aqua blue plastic.  There's red striping and
other printing that I will cover in more detail in vehicle mode.  The face
has silver paint around the eyes and on the big mustache area.  His eyes are
blue, and there's a red stripe along the crest.  There's silver paint on the
pelvis and black on the inside of the thighs.  A silver Autobot symbol is
printed on his belly button area.
     The head turns, and the waist turns with the same gimmick as Brawl.  The
shoulders are swivels, but a bit loose.  The elbows are also swivels, a bit
stiffer.  The right forearm has a swivel at the base of the axe.  On the left
forearm is a pair of five-barrel miniguns on a swivel base.  The hips are
ball joints, but the knees are strictly wrong-way bending for
transformation.  The missile stores in a pair of clamps on the back, a
feature Brawl really could've used.  The left hand is a symmetric
three-fingered claw thing (big finger on top, smaller fingers on either side,
thumb on bottom) that isn't really the right side to hold anything.
     As with the other two I've reviewed, there's a spring-action melee
gimmick.  It's meant to have the right hand axe swing, but the arm doesn't
want to stay up when straight out.  The instructions refer to it as a punch,
but this may be repeated text from other sets.  The missile locks into the
axe, and is fired by pressing a button on the side.  Again, better than
Brawl. 

     Transformation: Flip a shield up over the face, fold the arms back
around at the elbows so they're bent backwards 180 degrees (ow).  Make sure
the axe is side-to-side and the minigun pod is pointed forward, or things get
in each other's way.  Next, flip up the entire torso on the joint behind the
head, to get things clear of the spin piece.  Turning the grille piece 180
degrees (counter-clockwise from the view of looking straight on) makes the
shoulder pieces rotate back together, although it doesn't always go all the
way on its own, and the ratcheting can pop easily.  The legs peg together and
then the knees bend backwards 180 degrees to form the rear section, then
everything pegs together solidly.  Once you're done, store the missile
underneath (it's hard to keep it in place during transformation, it'll
generally get popped off).

     Vehicle Mode: 5.5" (14cm) long rescue-modified Hummer H2.  Most of
what's visible in this mode is the chartreuse plastic, but the rear half of
the roof rack is black plastic, as are the wheels and the front grille.  The
front part of the roof rack is painted black over green plastic.  The
headlights and roofmounted lamps are silver.  The windows are painted
metallic blue, and the lightbar on the roof is red.  A red heartbeat monitor
trace is printed on the sides, with "SEARCH & RESCUE" in silver inside the
trace line.  Above the trace at the back is "FIRE DEPARTMENT" in orange.  An
alternating red and orange hazard stripe is along the bottom of each door,
and on the side of each door is a fire department crest reading "SEARCH &
RESCUE / FIRE DEPT." around an Autobot symbol, the whole thing being in a mix
of red, silver and black.  About the only paint apps notable for their
absence are on the hubcaps of the four turning wheels and the rooftop spare.
Molded detail is pretty good.
     While the robot head is on the underside, they did think to provide a
shield for the face, at least.  So while the top of his head will find every
rock in the road, at least he won't eat roadkill.  Just, like, don't drive
through flooded roads.  Also, while the axe sticks down below the level of
the doors, it doesn't stick further down than the head, at least.
     Vehicle mode holds together very solidly.

     Overall: Actually pretty decent, better than Starscream to be sure.  But
I don't think I'm going to be getting any more FABs myself at full price,
except the wave 2 Frenzy.

     Dave Van Domelen, gonna go stick these up in his Go-Bots shelves.  They
need more actual villains there anyway.


Guest review from Justin Anderson:

     Ironhide notes below.  I'd go "mildly recommended" to "very mildly
recommended" on this one.  Woefully unimpressed, but not bad enough for an
"avoid".  Could have been much better.  $9.99 at Biggs.


Cannon Blast Ironhide
Altmode: Topkick pickup truck
Licensor: GM
Package Call-out: Arm Cannon Blasts Missile!

     As AUTOBOT weapon specialist, IRONHIDE is as tough as they come.  Gruff,
grim, and always ready for a fight, there's no problem he can't handle with
the application of a little firepower from his cannon arm.  Now that he's on
Earth, he just hopes they don't find the AllSpark before he gets the chance
to dent some DECEPTICON fenders.

STR 7  INT 5  SPD 6  END 10  RNK 7  COUR 9  FRB 8  SKL 6  Avg 7.25

     6 twist-ties for the robot, the missile is held by a rubber band.  The
left arm is bent in a manner which would be impossible for a human arm to
bend and the chest panel is folded down with a tie wrapped in front of it.  2
of the ties loop around the axles of the front wheels making them irritating
to remove.

     Robot Mode: 5.5" (14cm) tall, made half of black plastic (truck bits and
head and bluish-gray(arms, guns, hips, lower legs, central torso chunk).  The
head is jointed to turn but a rear chunk prevents movement.  Some shoulder
movement, and the elbows have a sideways hinge.  The upper arms are just thin
rods, really, and rely on the wheels to fill out space.  But at least they're
thick enough to not be a real breakage concern and the shoulder hinge looks
made to pop the arm off before it could break.  But this means he can really
only move his arms backwards, not forward.  The waist is a pull-back punch
spring as with Brawl (if you're old school, the old He-Man toys did it long
ago).  It can only cock to the right, a blocker tab prevents moving it the
other way.  The hips are balljointed (albeit stiffly) and the knees are
hinged.  No ankles.  The only ideal pose is "fists on hips".
     He has a severe case of G1 Ultra Magnus from the back.  In other words,
this is a toy meant to be looked at from the front.  The side panels hang off
his legs much in the same way they do on the Voyager version.  The only
advantage to this mode is the front half offers no hassles in positioning as
it's all fixed in place.  The missile loads in the left gun and fires
decently.
     Interestingly, while the head is rather film-accurate, the card's
artwork has a head with an eye visor, a sort of "sunglasses" thing.
     Gold paint highlights are all over, with the silver grille outline on
the front of the truck, silver headlights, metallic blue windows and white
"irises" on his eyes (their attempt to mimic the film's camera lens eyes
makes him look a little too human here).  A red GMC is on the chest, partly
obscured by the chest plate.  The kneepads are painted black.

     Transformation: The missile slots into the left leg for storage.  Fold
the hips back, fold up the front end, stow the arms into the cab then peg the
smokestacks to the legs.  Close the side panels.  Be sure the chest plate is
folded down or it will have zero ground clearance.

     Vehicle Mode: 5" (12cm) long and a hair over 2" (5cm) tall.  The front
end has a huge gap where the hinge is and where the embossed Autobot emblem
should be on the rear is not molded in or otherwise painted on - for that
matter, this toy lacks an emblem at all.  As far as truck modes go, the
Burger King toy was much better.  The toy does roll well though, despite
having maybe 2mm of ground clearance.  The wheels spin as if they're greased
(holding the toy on its side and spinning a wheel, I get a good ten second
spin out of it).  The only new paint apps visible are the silver strips under
the doors and the silver and red taillights.  The bed is covered, though with
the solid build of the legs they probably could have done them hollow, using
the tailgate as heels.
     LATER NOTE: The truck's roof piece is detachable to prevent breakage.
It clips to the central bar by 4 small tabs with a peg to line it up
properly.

     Overall: The robot mode is only mildly decent and the truck mode is
almost a waste.  The only upside is that it's a much more stable toy than the
Voyager.  Generally passable unless you dont want the voyager version.  The
only thing keeping me from not suggesting the toy is that the robot at least
LOOKS good for display.


Ironhide Basic Series review by Wonkimus Major
Price point: 2300 yen (depending on retailer)

     In Japan, the Fast Action Battler series is known as the Basic Series.
I wasn't planning on buying this, but my local TRU (I live in Tokyo) has a
bunch of the Basic Series unpackaged for kids to play test out.  They are in
the same place as some unpackaged Beast Wars reissues, so as you can imagine,
it's basically a box full of limbless torsos and Cheetor heads.  Ironhide was
only missing his roof, and I messed around with him a bit.  I thought the
auto-transform gimmick on this one was kind of cool, so I decided to pick one
up.

     Packaging: The Basic Series is the only Japanese movie TF series in
which the packaging has been redesigned in new Japanese-language packaging.
This is presumably to attract kids who can't yet read English.  Also, because
of the new packaging, the price on these are a few hundred yen higher than
the regular movie basics, which are sold in the US packaging.  (Note: the
department store LIVIN, which is owned by Wal-Mart, sells these for 1999 yen,
the same price as the regular movie deluxes.
     Top of the packaging has the TF movie logo written in Japanese katakana.
These toys are packaged in vehicle mode, as opposed to robot mode like in the
US.  The bottom of the bubble has a pic of the toy in robot mode and
character name in Japanese katakana as well.  Back of the package are the
same on all the toys.  There's a battle scene with 5 toys from the first 2
waves of the toys, which are also the co-sells--Prime, Ratchet, Jazz,
Starscream, and Brawl.  There is also a battle scene for the Beast Wars
re-issues in the bottom right-hand corner.

     Vehicle Mode: Not much to say here, it's a somewhat squatter version of
the Topkick pickup than the Voyager Ironhide.  As far as I know, there aren't
any differences between this one and the US version.

     Transformation: Flip back the doors, then swing down the legs.  The
autotransform works when you fold down the chest--the front of the truck
splits in half and the head pops out.  Then fold out the arms and insert the
missile. Done. I found that the auto-transform wasn't as fun as the one in
the store since mine does have the roof attached.  It gets in the way of the
arms.

     Robot Mode: Good representation of the character, at least from the
waist down...chest and arms area looks like he's perpetually flexing like
Hulk Hogan or something.  This could have been improved if the arms could
pull out from behind the front wheels or if the elbows could swivel at the
very least.  As it is, Ironhide can't even point his blasters (slimmed down
versions of the ones of the Voyager toy) at an enemy unless he's standing at
an angle.

     Overall: Certainly don't go looking for the Japanese version if you have
the US one available.  Because of the issue with the arms, I'd give this a
mildly recommended if you can get it for about ten bucks.  Otherwise, it's
not a "must have" unless you are a completist or just like the character.