Dave's Deluxe Fuzor Rant: Sky Shadow Silverbolt Finally found them. It looks like all of the Fuzors are currently shipping in boxes that are half Fuzors and half 4th Wave (Spittor and Powerpinch share the box with Quickstrike and Air Hammer, looks like Retrax and K-9 share the box with Sky Shadow and Silverbolt). So expect a certain level or rarity until/unless they start shipping boxes of just Fuzors. CAPSULES Sky Shadow: Beast mode's a bit iffy, transformation is satisfyingly involved, robot mode pretty good. Recommended. $9.99 at Target. Silverbolt: Very nice beast mode, interesting transformation, but somewhat unstable robot mode. Recommended. $9.99 at Target. RANTS PREDACON: Sky Shadow Function: Camoflage Expert Transformation Difficulty: 4 (Intermediate, I'd give it a 5 just for the fussy pegs) Quote: None An intelligent, brilliantly colored robot, Sky Shadow is one of the most charismatic and popular of the Predacons. A good statesman and leader, he acts as one of Megatron's most trusted counselors. In actuality however [redundant, either "In actuality," or "However," alone would be enough], he despises everyone and wants nothing more than to rule the Predacons with his own, "more imaginative techniques." He is an expert in concealment and surprise-assault tactics; with reptilian patience he can lie for days in wait and then suddenly attack with a powerful turbo-missile, or convert to robot form and overwhelm unexpecting [unsuspecting] Maximals with his devastating saw-edged pincer. Powerful wings allow him to hover over targets, giving him a distinct advantage with targeting accuracy and in reconnaissance missions. STR 4 INT 9 SPD 6 END 6 RNK 8 COUR 8 FRP 5 SKL 8 Avg 6.75 Aside from some redundancy and tendency towards using bigger words than needed, this is a good techspec note. Personality, motivation, tactics and powers. Okay, so he's at least insincere and possibly a psychopath, but he's got more than one note. And it's important to notice what this techspec says about the Predacon faction in general...that a nice guy (even one faking it) can be well-liked and popular, even EFFECTIVE in the Predacons. If they were all psycho loners, being a statesman wouldn't get him anywhere, yes? Finally, notice that the techspec note extrapolates his personality from his function...he camoflages his thoughts as well as his body. Beast Mode: Frankly, there's not much you can do with some of the combinations the designers get. And this is one of the harder ones to make look good. Combine this with trying to make a pair of wings into a claw weapon, and that pretty much puts paid to having a cool beast mode. Mind you, it's not horrid, and it's probably quite nearly the best possible result given all the preconditions, but that's like saying you've assembled the finest writing team possible from the ranks the local Junior High School. For the most part, what we get is an iguana with wings and a lump at the end of its tail if you ignore the color scheme. Most of the "dragonfly" elements are purely based on color and texture, the basic lines are almost totally iguana. And, to be honest, if they'd ditched the dragonfly parts and just made this mold into an iguana, I'd have been quite happy, since the iguana parts are quite good. The beast mode is 7 inches (18cm) long and has a wingspan of just a shade over 6 inches (15cm). It can fire its missile out of the tail. Transformation: Fairly challenging without the instructions, and unfortunately there's a few minor bits which require not only looking at the instructions, but carefully puzzling them out. Specifically, where the beast mode forelegs go in robot mode, since it's one of those "they could go anywhere, and the designers decided to put them *here*" things. The shoulder rotation trick used in Quickstrike is repeated here with even more cleverness, which I liked. Fitting the peg on the spine into its place on the torso is tricky, perhaps moreso than it needs to be. In the reverse transformation, getting the upper wings to stay pegged in place is even harder. One unfortunate side effect of the transformation method is that the waist joint is locked in place (undoing the peg gives a little poseability, but not much). Robot Mode: 5 inches (12cm) tall and very stable, thanks to large feet on *ball* joints. This is notable, because previously I think all feet have been hinged or unjointed, and the ball joint allows even better orientation of the foot. I suppose a major reason against using this before is the technical problems involved in making a stiff enough ball joint. The very limited "backpack" on the robot also helps in stability. If you've seen the pictures, you know that Sky Shadow has its beast head for one hand and a claw for the other, but this toy does not join the ranks of those totally without regular hands in robot mode...the beast head rotates back to reveal a regular three-clawed manipulator hand. About the only real problem with the robot mode is the question of what to do with the lower pair of wings. They're not mounted on flexible enough joints to be moved out of the way, and so have to stay somewhere on the chest, where they get in the way. And they don't look very good in a straight-out position like on Jetstorm. Weapons: The upper pair of wings becomes a big pincher claw with an insect face on it (meaning that in robot mode, three faces are visible... it's practically a Quintesson!). It's balanced just right so that by moving the toy back and forth, the claws open and shut, which is a nice play value thing for when you're having your toys fight. }-> The head of the robot (which is the tail-tip of the beast) spits a missile in the same sort of way Transquito does, but with a different firing mechanism. Rather than use a spring, they resurrected the Cyberjet-style launcher, and added a slider to the tail so that it could be fired in both modes. Rather clever, and fires about as far as a Cyberjet missile. Overall: While I still think the first reaction most will have to the beast form is to suppress a snicker, it's otherwise a pretty cool toy. MAXIMAL: Silverbolt Function: Tracker Transformation Difficulty: 4 (Intermediate) Quote: None Shadows of mystery cloak this silent and proud warrior. Part wolf, part eagle, Silverbolt possesses all the attributes of a great lone warrior: speed, power, wisdom, intelligence. His uncanny ability to track and then furiously overcome Predacons by himself, only to suddenly disappear into the backdrop, has inspired myths describing a fierce winged warrior who has come to defeat their evil ranks one by one. Preferring to work alone, Silverbolt is a ferociously intelligent fighter; extremely dextrous, he seems to be everywhere at once, striking with fearsome talons and firing hidden point-missiles from his wing tips to ultimately surface victorious. STR 7 INT 10 SPD 8 END 8 RNK 7 COUR 9 FRP 6 SKL 8 Avg 7.875 The sounds you are hearing are the cries of pain from the techspech writer as I savagely beat him about the head and shoulders with his thesaurus. If this note were any more purple, it'd be a Decepticon emblem. And talk about overkill in the "lone warrior" spiel. Like, we get it already, the techspec writer wants Silverbolt to be the Sixth Ranger for this season. Seems like they went and got a Junior High School students *not* selected for the group mentioned above to write this. Beast Mode: About 6 inches (14cm) from nose to tailfeather and with a wingspan of about 9 inches (22cm), this has one of the absolute best color schemes I've seen in a BW toy recently. The underlying plastic is all grey, with bronze, black and white paint where necessary. The wings are especially good-looking, with the exception of the loaded missiles, which weren't painted (sigh). Pulling down the tail makes the wings sweep forward, which will fire the missiles if they're loaded. There's very little robot mode stuff visible, and about the only real complaint I have aside from the missile coloration is that the talons in front don't close enough. Transformation: A rather nifty sort of origami thing with the fore and rear legs swapping positions and snapping into place. The pelvis, however, does not construct very well, as the tabs which are supposed to lock together and keep it stable keep slipping out of position. The shoulders lock very securely, however, once you find where the tabs have to click in. The wings don't fold onto the back like the package art implies, however, and sort of sit there on his shoulders. Robot Mode: 5 inches (13cm) tall, not counting the possibility of raising his wingtips over his head by several inches. Huge backpack, but heel spurs help deal with the balance issues. The arms look a bit odd, thanks to the wolf leg parts hanging off the backs of his arms. A little difficult to pose without having his hips fall apart. As a side note, that red thing on his abdomen was originally scripted to be a chaingun (in the Call of the Fuzors script). Weapon: Wingtip missiles which can be used as "swords." Except, the missiles don't look like swords, they look like giant SPOONS. "Help, this lone warrior's beating me to death with his spoons!" You can tell I have a certain amount of disdain for this weapon. Additionally, when wing-mounted, they fire only at an oblique angle, not forwards, backwards or straight out to the sides. And they fire quite easily, as the wings will readily move the tiny amount needed to trigger the launchers. I found it's best to store the missiles by sticking them in the concealed robot fists in beast mode, with the missiles resting between the legs and the body. Overall: Has some really cool aspects, and a few pretty dumb ones, but overall it's worth getting.