Dave's Transformers Rant: Fast Action Battlers Wave 3 Sonic Shock Smokescreen Claw Slash Ramjet (not reviewed) Fireblast Optimus Prime (not reviewed) Pulse Cannon Ironhide Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/FAB3 This wave is all recolors, and at least mostly recolors evoking older characters. I've only bought one of these molds before, though, since I've been kinda spotty with FAB in general. Claw Slash Ramjet is a G1 Ramjet recolor of Battle Blade Starscream (review of which can be found at http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/FAB1), Fireblast Optimus Prime is a recolor of the wave 1 FAB Prime in an Energon Rodimus color scheme, and Pulse Cannon Ironhide is wave 1 Ironhide (guest review also in the same file as Starscream) in gray vehicle mode with blue robot limb bits. If it's an homage at all, it's to the very first time the pickup truck Gobot/Spychanger mold was recolored as Ironhide. And that's...kinda obscure. I don't really plan to get any of the other three. Update 1/22/08: Of course, there's *my* plans, and there's the plans of my friends. :) Wonkimus Major wanted Ironhide, so I got him one, and reviewed it. CAPSULES Smokescreen: A decent robot mode for a FAB, fairly standard transformation, okay vehicle mode. Competent, but nothing special. Somewhat weird paint choices in a few places. Mildly recommended, but better in this color scheme than the original Jazz colors. $9.99 at Target. Ironhide: Hobbled and floppy robot mode, so-so transformation, bland vehicle mode. Leave this one on the shelf unless you're an Ironhide completist, and even then give it a second thought before buying. In other words, "Avoid." $9.99 at Target. RANTS Packaging: Same as waves 1 and 2. Cosells are the other three from the wave. The cosell pics don't list the epithets (like Claw Slash). SONIC SHOCK SMOKESCREEN Altmode: Pontiac Solstice Licensor: GM Previous Mold Use: FAB Jazz (Movie) Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Alternators, Armada, Cybertron, Universe Package call-out: "Cannon fires sonic shock blast!" SMOKESCREEN is the AUTOBOT in charge of diversionary tactics. He's fully loaded with sonic burst weapons, magnetic smoke bombs and oil slicks designed to scramble DECEPTICON sensors. If you need a DECEPTICON distracted, SMOKESCREEN is your main robot! STR 6 INT 7 SPD 7 END 6 RNK 7 COUR 8 FRB 6 SKL 9 Avg 7 5 twist-ties, the missile is rubber banded to the left arm, and a sort of blister headrest is wedged onto the back of the head, which is held back by another rubber band. Normally, a recolor review would talk about differences from the original, but since I never reviewed the original...you know, this may be the first time I've bought a recolor without first owning a previous version of the mold. It's not the first time I've reviewed a recolor before the original, mind you, since I reviewed Pepsi Prime and never reviewed the mold before that. Anyway, this is ol' #38 used for the fourth time as a recolor scheme. G1 Smokescreen was a tweak of the Bluestreak/Prowl mold, one of the Mini-Cons in Armada got blue and red with a 38, and Cybertron Crosswise got recolored as #38. It's not as bad as Swerve, which ONLY exists as a red recolor, since there's been a few Smokescreens that were new molds (Armada crane, G2 Decepticon jet, and Alternators Smokescreen may have shared a mold with Silverstreak but it did end up being released first). Robot Mode: 6" (15cm) tall. Most of the parts not visible in car mode are light gray...underside of the torso, the entire abdomen, pelvis, thighs and inner parts of the upper arms. The shoulder hub buts and the center of the chest are also light gray plastic. I think the head is light gray too, but the paint matching on this toy is pretty good, it could be blue plastic with light gray paint. The forearms and boot fronts are darkish medium blue plastic. The top of the torso, the "cape" and the back/sides of the boots are dull medium red plastic. The shoulder tires and the wheels on the boots are black plastic. His missile is clear yellow plastic. I'll cover more of the paint job in vehicle mode, but here's a few relevant bits. The chest center is painted blue to match the rest of the blue trim, with a red Pontiac symbol. There's a red Autobot symbol on the pelvis. The helmet is blue, with yellow visor and a weird yellow paint app on the bunny ears. It's on the top side rather than the front edge, so instead of evoking G1 Smokescreen's crest, it just looks bizarre. The arms move at the shoulder and that's it, pretty standard FAB articulation there. And also like most FABs, the waist is spring-loaded to let him swing his missile (either loaded in the left arm or held like a sword in the right claw) as a melee weapon, but with ratcheting so he can hold a turned pose. Ball joint hips and hinge knees (which only bend about 45 degrees the correct way, but 90 degrees backwards) round out the articulation. As for the missile...well, it's a bog-standard spring-launched missile. Nothing terribly special about it. Transformation: In its basics, this is a first run Spychanger transform, although the head is in the center of the hood rather than at the back of it. There's also a certain amount of panel-fiddling needed to get the doors to lock into place, and then the roof pegs onto the backs of the boots. Getting it back into robot mode without ripping off the roof can be tricky. The roof pegging has to be last in going to vehicle mode, and undone first in going to robot mode. The missile cannot be left in the launcher during transformation. Instead, there's a slot on the inside of the right leg for storing it. Automorph: When the lower body is bent back and forth, it moves the head most of the way between modes, and makes the center of the chest pop out a couple millimeters for robot mode or suck back in for car mode. Vehicle Mode: 5.5" (14cm) long, a somewhat tooned version of a Pontiac Solstice. Most of the body shell is red plastic, but the doors are blue plastic and the front end is mostly light gray plastic. There's good paint matching on the blue along the front, back and sides. The windows are metallic light blue, the headlights and rear hubcaps are silver. The front hubcaps are unpainted...and don't spin. More on that later. The "38" on each door is black on a silver field. The taillights are left unpainted red plastic. The top halves of the foglamps are yellow, and the Pontiac symbol on the front is painted red. A fairly prominent red (different shade from the plastic) and silver Autobot symbol is printed on the hood, dominating the rectangle that pops up to reveal the head. Like every FAB, there's a couple of triangles in vehicle mode that need to line up. In this case, the back of the roof and where the legs come together for the trunk. There's minimal robot bits visible in this mode, just the robot toes hanging down in back. The front wheels are weird. The hub sections are fixed, and the tires spin around them. Add to that the fact that they're unpainted light gray, and it just looks wrong. It even looks like the toy's broken, with the front wheels not turning. [Later update: Okay, yesterday someone parked a red convertible Solstice in the lot at my apartment building. Smokescreen is not chibi at all, that's really how a Solstice's proportions look in person. :) ] Overall: As a simplified toy aimed at kids a little too young for regular Movie TFs, it does a good job. The main reason I didn't get the Jazz version was that I felt like I'd been buying too many Jazz toys anyway, given that none of the versions really sang to me. This is a decent mold, but not a really good one. But it's worth grabbing as a Smokescreen, even if the paint apps could use work. PULSE CANNON IRONHIDE Altmode: GMC Topkick Licensor: GM Previous Mold Use: FAB Cannon Blast Ironhide Previous Name Use: G1, G2, BW, RiD, Armada, Energon, Universe, Movie Package Call-out: "Pulse cannon blasts missile!" IRONHIDE is the toughest AUTOBOT there is. He's always armed to the grill and ready for a fight. In fact, he almost hopes the DECEPTICONS show up, because he just mounted his new Pulse Cannon, and he's itching to try it out. STR 7 INT 5 SPD 6 END 10 RNK 7 COUR 9 FRB 8 SKL 6 Avg 7.25 Ohta wants to shoot the guuuunnnn! Ahem. :) The packaging on this one is...unfortunate. They try posing it with an arm raised to fire to the upper right, which only highlights how the arm really isn't meant to move that way. If they'd just left both arms down, they could have hidden how wonkily it's jointed. Six twist-ties hold the robot into the blister, and the missile is rubber-banded onto it just above the launcher. As mentioned above, this is a sort of G2 Ironhide scheme, just not one that's been reused. The very first time Motormouth (Gobot Superspeedbot pickup truck) got recolored as Ironhide, it was silvery gray body shell with blue torso and red legs, which this is close to. Every other Ironhide recolor of that mold has been some other scheme, such as blue or red. Robot Mode: 6" (15cm) tall at the head, a teeny bit taller at the kibble poking up behind his head. Most of the vehicle bits are a silvery light gray plastic, aside from the tires, which are black. The head and thighs are a grayish light blue (#6699CC hexcode). His arms, boot fronts, roof strut and armor skirt flap are dark blue (close to #336699, but a tad darker). The core of his torso is dark gray (#333333), and the muzzle tips on his arm cannons are black plastic. His missile is an orange-red plastic, and the body shell gray is used on his pelvis. Silver paint is on his face, the backs of his fists, and vehicle mode bits to be covered below. There's some "doesn't cover fully" yellow on his forehead, "horns" and shins. His eyes are bright blue, and a silver Autobot symbol is printed on his crest. Poseability is...misguided. Okay, he has hinge shoulders and a swivel above the elbow. But the elbow doesn't bend, and the massive chest chunk keeps the shoulder joints from being too useful. He really only has two positions for his arms that don't look incredibly bad: tucked against his belly or pointed out to the sides. And since his head can only wiggle a little, he can't actually shoot in the direction he's looking. The waist is the usual spring-loaded affair, but since he can't hold his arms out to the front, or point his missile forward, it's more of a "chest smash" move. Also, the armor skirt flips up if you use this gimmick, making him look awfully happy to see you. Ball joint hips and hinge knees are standard, and okay. However, the big door panels on his boots look awkward in any pose. Transformation: Automorph the front end, then fold the arms up into the cab. The legs do the standard "peg together and swing up" trick, with the roof piece pegging onto it, and then the door panels swing around and snap to the sides. Oddly, while the toy does have the usual triangular impressions on it, they don't line up together, instead being on the front sides of the doors. I guess they really mean "undo this connection first". Which makes sense, a pity they didn't actually make a big deal about it from the beginning! The missile stores between the legs in much the same way as on Smokescreen. Automorph: Pulling back the lower body makes the front end fold together and hide the head. Vehicle Mode: 5.25" (13.5cm) long, and normally proportioned rather than chibi in any meaningful way. The body shell, including a bed cover, is all silvery light gray, and the wheels are black. A bit of robot hinge in dark gray is visible where a hood ornament might be. The blue feet are visible in back, and there's very little ground clearance due to all the robot bits hanging down underneath. The windows are painted a metallic teal, the taillights are red, and most of the headlights are silver, as are the hubcaps. The outer top lights are yellow. The bumper and grill are painted black, with the GMC logo painted red. Some of the window paint splashed on the big ugly transformation hinge on the right side of this one. It holds together well and rolls nicely on the wheels. No big whoop in this mode, though. Overall: Eh. Now that I've got it in my hands, I don't regret my initial decision to pass on this mold. Easily the least interesting, least fun of the Fast Action Battlers I've examined. As an aside, the G1 moviebots tally now stands at: Target exclusive Jazz and Starscream, Rescue Ratchet, First Strike Optimus Prime (a G1-ish color job on Voyager Prime) and maybe Cliffjumper and Thundercracker (those and Bumblebee are kinda hard to call, though, as to whether they're G1 homages or movie updates like regular flame-deco Prime). There don't seem to be any plans for a red Ironhide, though, or a green and purple Scorponok. But I wouldn't be surprised to see more G1 homages come down the pike. Dave Van Domelen, was at work from sunrise to sunset again today.