Dave's Transformers Movie Rant: Leader Wave 2 Decepticon Brawl Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/Leader2 Leader class is one that's not generally going to see a lot of variety, so it's not too surprising that as of late August 2007 this is the last new mold at the size planned for the movie, with recolors of both Brawl and Prime coming after. CAPSULE Decepticon Brawl: Impressive-looking and pulls off a number of things that the Deluxe failed at, but a tad too kibbly and the transformation to vehicle mode has some serious problems. Mildly recommended. $39.67 at Wal-Mart. RANT Packaging: Same style as on Prime and Megatron, and both of the previous Leaders are co-sells on the bottom. As with those two, there's a "Try Me" window to let you press down his chest button and get a partial Advanced Automorph (his head retracts when you push down, and then you get a sequence of weaponsfire). As with them, as well, ties and bands keep the lever frmo being locked down. It's kinda easily to accidentally trigger sounds, too. On the back, the photo of the toy is 'shopped to make his light-up bits glow red, but his missile pods actually glow green. The catalog that comes with it is the second one, with Ultimate Bumblebee featured. Ten thick twist-ties go through to the back of the cardboard tray. One rubber band and a thick twist-tie keep his chest together and prevent it from locking down the Automorph. DECEPTICON: DECEPTICON BRAWL Altmode: M-1 Abrams Tank (more or less) Licensor: None Previous Name Use: None as "Decepticon Brawl"; as "Brawl" G1, G2 Package Callouts: "AUTOMORPH arm cannon!" "Extending arm blade!" "Push barrel in for sounds and lights!" "Move turret for battle sounds!" Function: Fire Support Motto: (None, he's too busy shooting to talk.) DECEPTICON BRAWL is proud to be a big, mean destruction-dealing machine. He's a one-robot wrecking crew, and a serious problem for AUTOBOTS and humans alike. His armored skin is thick enough to shrug off anything short of a point-blank blast from a fusion cannon, and his built-in weapon systems are more than adequate to bring down even the toughest enemy. He lives for the thudding roar of his shells bursting aong a cluster of enemies and the shrill crackle of his lasers cutting through the armor of an AUTOBOT warrior. He is a fighter through and through, bored and moody during his standby cycles, but happy as can be as soon as he rolls into battle. STR 8 INT 3 SPD 3 END 9 RNK 5 COUR 9 FRB 9 SKL 3 Avg 6.125 Same stats as Deluxe version. And his armored skin didn't do so well against Bumblebee's FRB of 3, did it? Robot Mode: Packaged in this mode. He's 8.75" (22.5cm) tall at the head, but a total of 11.5" (29.5cm) tall at the secondary cannon barrels sticking up like flags behind his back. 1 lb 5 oz (594g) in weight/mass. The dominant color is an olive drab green. The tank treads, shoulders, elbows, forearm interior structure, hands, thigh back halves, feet and some interior jointing stuff are black plastic. The knees, shin blades (see below), chest details, minesifter blades (which look like something out of a hair salon), neck base, forearm weapon support struts and claws are light gray plastic. The clear plastic is colorless, and found on the main cannon barrel, the rocket pods and the eye light piping (but with clear orange paint over the eyes). The main cannon LED is red, the rocket pod LEDs are green. There's not a lot of paint visible in this mode. A few gold accents here and there, gray on the kneecaps, weapon details and strips of it on the thighs. The face is gray rather than silver, with gold eyebrows and forehead tablet. From behind you can see most of the tank mode paint, which is a forest green camo splotch deal. Some of this is also visisble on the roots of his minesifters. Overall, it looks a lot like the Deluxe, but more details and more stable. There's more boot kibble, though, since a LOT of tank armor is folded up in the back there. However, since the arms don't hide in the turret, the main cannon is not attached to the right arm. Instead, he has what looks to be a missile pod on the right arm, which Automorphs into a quad gun. The cannon is held along his right side, in a way reminiscent of Armada Megatron. The mine sifters are on spring-loaded hinges for part of the Advanced Automorph, which limits how they can be positioned in robot mode. For instance, they can't really manage the horizontal-blades configuration hinted at in the design of Cyber Slammer Brawl, at best being about 45 degrees down. Undocumented feature: fold-down blades in the shins, for when he has to kick you where it hurts and make it hurt MORE. They aren't on stiff enough joints to really act as toe supports, so it's clearly just supposed to be your basic kick-blade. The head is on a ball joint, but mostly just turns. Pushing it back will trigger the Advanced Automorph sequence of sound and light (see below). No waist articulation. The shoulders are ratcheting universal joints. There's actually a hinge in the upper arm for transformation, then a swivel between the upper arm and the ratchet hinge elbow. The wrist bends with about a 45 degree range, and a little piston piece that moves along with it, very nifty effect. The thumb and each of the two fingers are hinged, and the hand can grab onto the main cannon rather suggestively. Brawl likes his cannon. The hips are ratcheting universal joints, there's a smooth swivel right above the ratcheting knees, and the ankles are hinged to move side to side a little. Not enough to let him be flat-footed for even a slightly wide stance, though. The big pile of armor pieces on the back of the boots makes it hard to get meaningful poseability out of the legs in general, though. Pushing the main cannon barrel in (or even tapping it) sets off its sound and light. The red LED at its base shines up through the barrel (three short flashes and a longer shine) as a single reverberating cannon shot effect is heard. Now, the instructions don't mention how to get the other weapons to fire in this mode, only talking about turning the secondary turret, but here's another undocumented feature. On either side of the little black machinegun mounted on the secondary turret is a slightly recessed button. Pushing the one on Brawl's right generates a five round burst of the secondary cannons (well, that's what it sounds like) and the missile pods' LED flash in time. Pushing the one on Brawl's left yields a machinegun sound and more green LED flashing. In addition to the claws mentioned earlier, there's a non-firing minigun (six barrels) on the left forearm that can be folded out. There are no firing missiles on this toy, ironically. The blade weapon is not meant to do this, but thanks to the strut that lets it swing out to store in the leg during transformation, it can fold out to become a longer weapon, and you can even finesse things so that the left hand holds the weapon chunk. Transformation: I didn't need the instructions, but it was a near thing. There's a LOT of weird panel shifting and stuff-hiding, and the forearm weapons are snapped on pretty tight, making it less than obvious that they're supposed to pop off. Getting the tank barrel back to the front of its turret requires bending some pieces a little more than I'm comfortable with. The secondary cannon barrels are designed to pop off rather than break, but come off too easily during transformation. The real hassle in getting to vehicle mode is making the fender/tread pieces fit into place. The arms have to be in EXACTLY the right position or they block the side pieces from getting close enough to their required tabs. Automorph: There's two weapon Automorphs, a number of little touches that could be considered Automorphy (like panels that are on springs so that when you close one part the rest closes on its own), a major and annoying Automorph for vehicle-to-robot and then the Advanced Automorph. The right arm gun has a sight pop up when you start to slide the barrels out with a tab. The left arm blades swing down when you push back on the black chunk that contains a minigun...but odds are the blades will pop off instead. They're kinda annoying that way. There's a couple of spring-loaded tabs that hold the armored "fenders" in place, and they're a little on the dodgy side. Getting everything properly loaded is a royal pain. Finally, pushing down on the gray bar at the middle of his chest makes the head retract and (if you have the "teeth" attached to the bar lowered) lets the minesifters pop up into tank mode position. This is accompanied by the sounds of the main cannon, the secondary cannons, and then the machineguns in that order, with all three lights flashing. Pushing a gray button between the teeth lets the head pop back up and the minesifters drop. The sounds also trigger in the same order. Just tapping the head down a little in robot mode is enough to trigger this sound and light sequence. No other buttons or trigger will do anything until the sequence runs its course. Vehicle Mode: This is basically the same as Deluxe Brawl, an M-1 Abrams with a real-life mine-sifter system on the front and a totally-fantasy secondary turret atop the main turret, holding two smaller cannons, a pair of rocket pods and a machinegun. The robot feet folded up into something that's supposed to be those barrels on the back, but it looks like half-barrels with a bunch of tech-greeble stuck on them instead. The body of the tank (including sifters and barrels) is 10.5" (27cm) long and 4.25" (10.5cm) wide. The main turret is 5.25" (13cm) long without the main cannon barrel, and 9.5" (24cm) long with it, and 3.5" (9cm) wide. The secondary turret is 2.75" (7cm) long, 5.5" (14cm) with the cannon barrels, and 2.5" (6.5cm) wide. There's some gappiness in this mode, there's no panel to cover the hole that the head retreats through, so you can see his face peering out of the hole. And there's a lot of open space under the rear of the turret that's exposed when you turn the turret to the side. Almost everything visible in this mode is olive green plastic. The barrels, treads and machinegun are black plastic. The sifter blades and "bumper" (which can be folded down to make the sifter look more like a hedgerow cutter) are light gray. The headlights (which are triggers for letting the fenders pop out in Automorph) are also light gray. The rocket pods and the tip of the main cannon are colorless clear. The tank theoretically rolls on four little wheels on the treads and one in the middle of the underside, but I've yet to get it to come together well enough in vehicle mode to let the wheels actually roll. They tend to slide instead, as not all are on the ground at once. It works a little better on a rougher surface, like paper. The main turret can turn around freely, with the main gun barrel able to elevate a little bit, maybe 20 degrees. The secondary turret can turn 180 degrees either way, but due to the connections it has with the battery pack in the main turret, it can't turn freely, and stops when pointed straight back (with respect to the main turret). The rocket pods can swivel from straight ahead to straight out to the side, a 90 degree range (again, where "straight ahead" is defined by the direction the main gun is pointed). The batteries and speaker are mounted in the main turret. Turning the secondary turret about 40-50 degrees to the right triggers the secondary cannon sounds and lights, while turning to the left triggers the machinegun sequence. Leaving it at those positions instead of just moving past will result in continuous fire. Pushing in the main gun will make it fire, and this will also override either secondary turret sound. Once the main gun sound stops, the secondary gun sound will not resume until you turn the secondary turret a little. The main gun can be fired as rapidly as you want, it's not locked into the sequence, it'll just finish out the last sequence you trigger. There's no way to trigger the Automorph sound and light sequence in this mode without making the front end fall apart, the trigger point is too close to the "robot configuration" position to pull the same trick as in robot mode. However, the buttons on the secondary turret still work as before. Pressing one will break you out of a continuous fire situation, even if you're pressing the button for the weapon that's currently on continuous. Either button will also override the previous button's sequence. Overall: Big, details, lots of sound and light gimmicks. But he also gets in his own away a lot, and transformation of those side panels is a real pain in the skidplate. Better than Megatron, not as good as Optimus. Dave Van Domelen, is gonna have to reshuffle some display area to make room for Brawl.