Dave's Revenge of the Fallen Rant Combiner Class Bruticus Maximus Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/Combiner2 This is a redeco of the original Bruticus Maximus from Energon: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Energon/BasicD - Limbs http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Energon/DeluxeD - Barricade and combined mode Unlike Superion, which they were able to re-release without the Maximus, apparently they weren't able to get "Bruticus" as a trademark back. CAPSULE Superion: Original limbs ranged from Mildly Recommended to Strongly Recommended, with some bad color schemes knocking one helicopter and one tank down a notch. Barricade was Recommended, and the combined form was the best of the three Energon combiners, in my opinion. The new colors are far more restrained than the Energon versions, with numerous G1 homages and a few injokes. Swindle's a bit of a weak link on mine, which is probably apropos, if someone has to be a bad one. And the price is very good for a Deluxe and four Scouts. Recommended even if you have the original. $29.99 regular price at Target. RANT Packaging: Same as Superion, more or less. There's a little shield rubber-banded over the backpack piece on Onslaught, and shields on the helicopter blades. The Energon weapons are attached to all but Brawl, who has his strapped to the side. The energon colors are actually all different, but you sometimes have to put them side by side to tell. The 8-pointed Energon Stars are socketed into the plastic tray on the left and bottom, mostly hidden by the cardboard of the box. DECEPTICON: BLAST OFF Altmode: Gepard Armored Vehicle (more or less) Licensor: None Previous Name Use: G1, G2 (later redecos were Movor) Previous Mold Use: Energon (Blight/Kickback) Epithet: Arrogant loner astronaut Official Limb: Right Arm Energon Color: Orange MUAHAHA. He's still an astronaut, but he's an anti-aircraft armored vehicle. Packaging: In tank mode in the lower left, with Energon weapon attached but the radar dish folded back. Two twist-ties hold the tank into the plastic tray, and despite the fact that the Energon weapon does a great job of holding the turret together, there's a rubber band around it (but not around the weapon itself, oddly). Mistransformed in the package, the chest block that rotates to bring the turret further forward is in robot position. In fact, the instructions don't even show it rotating. Color Swaps: Compared to Kickback, it's not a clean swap...the medium green is split into two different colors here (it's not split on Blight). The green of the wheels, torso, shins and chestplate becomes a dark purple, the rest of the green plastic becomes a sort of muddy light brown. Dark green becomes black, light gray becomes medium gray, clear blue becomes clear orange. Paint Apps: In vehicle mode, there's dark silver on the vents near the rear of the fenders and on the smokescreen projectors on the front (the pegs for attaching the hand or foot in combined mode). The molded Decepticon symbol on the turret is painted purple, with bits of bright red just behind it and on the "headlights" of the tank. The treads are painted gloss black. A matte black star is printed at the front center, plus a B on the front of the right fender and an O on the front of the left fender, for Blast Off. In robot mode, there's silver on the face, fingers and kneecaps, additional red on the forehead tablet, and additional purple on the abdomen front flanks (the bits traditionally colored red on G1 Megatron). Mold Changes: None that I noticed. The left arm cannon is floppy, but the superglue trick fixed it right up (a little bit of glue, keep moving it until the glue dries). Other Notes: His color scheme, while seemingly odd, is a direct homage to the G1 Blast Off's scheme of purple and brown. I fiddled around with it to see if I could make something vaguely like a spaceship, and I didn't really get all that close. Sort of bird of prey-ish: http://www.dvandom.com/images/rotfblastoffship.JPG DECEPTICON: DECEPTICON BRAWL Altmode: Gepard-ish Licensor: None Previous Name Use: Movie1 ("Brawl" alone was G1, G2, and redecos of that version during the "Decepticon Brawl" era were named Armorhide) Previous Mold Use: Energon (Blight/Kickback) Epithet: Loudmouthed artillery gunner Official Limb: Left Leg Energon Color: Yellow-orange One of two Combaticons to be about the same vehicle type as in G1, with Onslaught being sorta-kinda. Packaging: In tank mode in the upper right, with the Energon weapon tied to its side rather than plugged onto the turret. Two ties hold the tank and weapon into the tray, and a rubber band keeps the turret together. Same mistransformation in package as Blast Off. I suppose you could leave one of the two unrotated in vehicle mode to better distinguish them. Color Swaps: Same sort of split as Blast Off, so I'll compare Brawl to Blast Off instead of to Kickback. The ick brown becomes olive green, the purple becomes dark olive green, the gray becomes light olive green, the black becomes light gray, the clear plastic is a slightly yellower orange. Paint Apps: In tank mode, it has the same purple and red bits as Blast Off, and the vents are painted silver, but the smokescreen projectors are unpainted. Instead, there's silver on the round details on either side of the spark crystal piece. The treads are painted medium-light warm gray. There's a black "1MJ9" printed on his front, which makes no sense...until you turn it upside down (I can't claim credit for this, I found it while googling on the string) and get "brWL" more or less. Cute. For robot mode, the fingers are silver as with Blast Off, but the silver on the knees is lower down, and there's only silver on the forehead and chin. The middle part of the face is painted medium gray. There's no other paint specific to this mode. Mold Changes: None that I could find. The left cannon pops off easily, but it's not floppy. Other Notes: Y'know, other than the bright orange pieces, this is a pretty restrained color scheme, even moreso than the G1 Brawl scheme. DECEPTICON: VORTEX Altmode: Helicopter Gunship Licensor: None Previous Name Use: G1, G2 (later redecos got named Ro-Tor) Previous Mold Use: Energon (Stormcloud/Blackout) Epithet: COMBATICONS interrogator Official Limb: Left Arm Energon Color: Bright red The other almost-G1 Combaticon, with colors pretty close to the G1 scheme as well. And rather than give him a personality-based epithet, they just used his G1 function, interrogator. Packaging: In helicopter mode in the upper left, but with the propellors folded together to avoid overlapping anything. A single twist-tie holds the fuselage, and one holds down one of the rotor blades. A V-shaped shield is rubber-banded over the inner length of the rotors. Color Swaps: It doesn't exactly map to either the Stormcloud or Blackout layout, so I'll just go ahead and list the plastic colors directly, as it's more complicated than the split seen on the tanks. Well, the clear plastic is obvious, it changes from clear blue to the Energon color listed above (same for Swindle). Dark denim blue-gray on the head (other than the lightpiping), forearms, shins, feet and the plate under the cockpit. Medium gray on the core of the Energon weapon, on the upper arms, thighs, rotors, tail end, collar and the panel that connects the head to the chest (and that folds out of the way for combination mode). The clear plastic is now red, and the rest of the toy is light gray plastic. Paint Apps: Most of his paint in vehicle mode is plastic-matching. Light gray on the cockpit window, denim blue on the nose, medium gray on the tail. He has silver on the intakes behind the cockpit and on the tips of the robot toes, plus silver on the leading edges of his stub wings. The molded Decepticon symbol is painted purple, and a black "V-1" is printed on the other side of the fuselage symmetic to the 'Con symbol. There's little red bits on what become the lower shin fronts. The fingers, face and helmet crest are painted silver. There's also a little bit of silver on a detail inside the forearm, a subtle but nice touch. Mold Changes: None that I noticed. Other Notes: None. DECEPTICON: SWINDLE Altmode: Helicopter Gunship Licensor: None Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Alternators, Armada, Cybertron, Movie1, TF:A Previous Mold Use: Energon Epithet: DECEPTICON con artist Official Limb: Right Leg Energon Color: Burnt orange Packaging: In helicopter mode in the lower right, almost totally covered by the image of Bruticus Maximus's head. One twist-tie on the main body, one at each end of the rotors, holding a plastic shield over the rotors. A rubber band holds the middle of the shield in place. It had a serious problem with bits rattling loose in the package, so when I undid the ties it almost fell apart in my hands. Color Swaps: This uses the same mapping as Vortex, so I'll compare Swindle to Vortex. Blue-gray becomes dark tan, medium gray becomes light tan, light gray becomes medium tan, the clear plastic is a sort of burnt orange. Paint Apps: Like Vortex, there's a lot of plastic-matching paint in vehicle mode. Light tan on the tail, cockpit window and the top of the nose is the extent of it, though, no dark or medium tan. There's red and purple in the same places as on Vortex (yes, the two tanks do the same "identical red and purple masks" trick). The fuselage intakes and the entire front of the robot toes are dark silver, and there's a light tan stripe along the shins plus light tan on the winglet leading edges. A black $ is printed on the fuselage sides even with the 'Con symbol. In robot mode, the face, fingers and that little forearm detail are dark silver. The sides of the helmet, but not the earpieces, are painted light tan, so he gets a light/dark tan striping effect. Mold Changes: None that I noticed. The Energon weapon is really floppy, but that doesn't affect its ability to stabilize vehicle and combiner modes. Other Notes: The legs didn't want to align properly in vehicle mode on mine. After playing around a bit, I found that swapping the upper legs (but not the lower legs...those have to stay where they are) fixed the problem. Mind you, it might have just been all the messing around that fixed it, rather than the specific solution. Swindle was generally pretty fall-aparty, at least right out of the box. DECEPTICON: ONSLAUGHT Altmode: Rocket Truck (based on ASTROS AV-LMU Rocket Launcher) Licensor: None Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Universe2 Previous Mold Use: Energon (Barricade) Epithet: COMBATICONS leader and strategic genius Packaging: In robot mode in the center of the box, with his backpack up over his head because the box is too shallow for him to fit while properly transformed. One twist-tie all the way through the cardstock tray, five more on just the plastic tray. Single rubber band holds a shield over the backpack. His feet are not transformed, you need to fold up the toes and flip out the heel spurs. Color Swaps: Compared to Barricade, dark blue becomes a medium-light warm gray plastic, light gray becomes a very dark olive green (darker than Brawl), black becomes a light french gray (slightly brownish), clear blue becomes a sort of rose red. However, the Bruticus head doesn't follow this swap pattern, instead becoming the color that blue turned into (I took apart both heads to see if they were totally painted over, but neither is, so it's a break in the pattern). I guess the head is on a different sprue. Paint Apps: In vehicle mode, there's silver on the doors, roof hatch and rocket tips (and if you don't fix the leg-swap mentioned below, the pelvis silver is also visible). The wheel hubs are dark grayish brown. The area around the rocket tips is dark metallic purple, and the area around the hardpoints on the sides of the rocket box is also dark metallic purple (it's not symmetric, more on that in robot mode). The headlights are red. On the hood there's white printing (which is thin enough to look more gray), "ON-SLT" (ON above SLT) on the passenger side and "C5" on the driver's side. C5 was his original G1 Team ID, although Energon Barricade's ID was D5 (C5 for that was Steamhammer). There is no Decepticon symbol visible in this mode. The dark metallic purple on his hardpoints is now kneecaps in this mode, and is joined by a rectangle at the center of his chest, the bottom edges of his shoulderpads and his forehead tablet. The left kneecap area has more purple than the right, oddly. The fists, face, pelvis and details on the chest and abdomen are painted silver. Mold Changes: None that I noticed. Other Notes: There are reports of incorrectly assembled legs here too, and it's a harder fix than the misassembled legs on Silverbolt. The main effect of the misassembly is to put the heel spurs on the outside rather than the inside (which makes them less useful when the legs are spread apart), but it also hides the screw holes on the pelvis in vehicle mode, so overall it's not enough worse to mess with. He's probably farthest of the five from his G1 color scheme, lacking the dark aqua of the original Onslaught. DECEPTICON: BRUTICUS MAXIMUS Altmode: None Licensor: None Previous Name Use: Energon Previous Mold Use: Energon Slow nad stupid might be considered drawbacks in most warriors, but not BRUTICUS MAXIMUS. In him, these traits simply serve to highlight just how strong and indestructible he is. He is one of the strongest and toughest DECEPTICONS ever built, with enough power to pulverize most AUTOBOTS with a single blow. Missiles and artillery bounce harmlessly off his armor, and high-powered lasers just annoy him. Most AUTOBOTS consider any battle in which BRUTICUS MAXIMUS takes part a losing proposition. STR 10 INT 3 SPD 1 END 9 RNK 5 COUR 10 FRB 8 SKL 6 Avg 6.5 And yes, these are the same techspec numbers as the gift set Bruticus in G1 had. Complete with a lower END than Superion, oops. The packaging photo has more paint apps than the actual toy, with extra purple paint on the chest and more silver on the abdomen. It also has symmetric paint on the Onslaught kneecap parts, although the separate photo of Onslaught has the correct lack of symmetry (and the correct absence of purple paint on the front end that becomes Brut's chest). Differences: As mentioned above in Onslaught, the head is a light medium warm gray plastic, with light gray "horns". The face is mostly painted silver, with dark metallic purple on the forehead tablet. While the instructions have Vortex's rotors folded together, you can get a bit more of a G1 look by leaving the rotor open and folding the tail in so that the rotor can spin. General Observations: The panel with the combiner head pops off pretty easily. Swindle is the weakest link overall, both due to general stability issues and the fact that the helicopter Energon weapon makes for a bad foot. Overall: Okay, unless I got lucky and got a rare non-messed-up version, they didn't screw up this reissue like they did Superion. It's a good set, the colors don't hurt my eyes like several of the originals, definitely worth picking up. Dave Van Domelen,