Dave's NEST Legends Rant: Target Two-Packs Bumblebee (mild redeco) and Shadow Striker (G1 Wheelie redeco) Rally Mudflap and Offroad Skids (redecos) Smokescreen (G1 Rodimus in G1 Smokescreen colors) and Starscream (redeco) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/LegendsNT1 While the original Mudflap and Skids molds were nice enough, I'm not really interested in same-character redecos of them. I have too many copies of the Starscream mold already, and in person the Smokescreen redeco of Rodimus wasn't that impressive. I almost passed on Bumblebee/Shadow Striker as well, since I have too many Bumblebees, but they just had to make Shadow Striker a female...and a callback to a convention-exclusive character, to boot! This Shadow Striker has a different personality than the BotCon toy, though. http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/Legends1 - Bumblebee mold http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/U2/Legend5 - Wheelie mold CAPSULES Bumblebee and Shadow Striker: Bumblebee mold was originally mildly recommended, Shadow Striker's Wheelie mold was recommended. Bumblebee's paint job is overall slightly improved, but they left out some bits. Shadow Striker is light on paint, but looks fine without it. Recommended. $6.99 at Target. RANTS Packaging: A double-wide blister card, it looks like a card in the process of mitosis that hasn't quite finished splitting into two. The blisters are joined, and even the inner tray is all once piece rather than two separate ones inserted together. The card is 8" (20cm) wide and 7" (18cm) tall, with the NEST shield in the upper right and the TF logo on the other two thirds of the top of the card. The blisters use a mirror image layout, with the octagonal faction symbol blocks being at the bottom center, the names and factions trailing out to the sides. The blister sides both have the NEST shield, no Cybertronian glyphs. The bottom has a co-sell of one of the other two sets (Smokescreen and Starscream on the bottom of the Bumblebee set, so presumably the S&S set has the twins as a co-sell and the twins have the Bumblebee set). The card back has photos of both figures in robot mode at the top, flanking the shared bio note. Below that are the vehicle modes, flanked by the individual techspecs. The line-art instructions run along the bottom third of the cardback, Shadow Striker's has 8 steps while BB only has 6. Inside, each is held by a single twist-tie. There's a NEST mail-in redemption sticker under Bumblebee's feet, taped to the blister. Shared Bio: BUMBLEBEE isn't easily frustrated, but SHADOW STRIKER seems to have done the trick. Something about her personality, from her sneering expression to her constant sarcastic remarks, just gets on his nerves. SHADOW STRIKER is a plain unpleasant robot, and BUMBLEBEE is determined to make her regret her insults. I believe the proper response to this sort of character dynamic is, "get a room, already!" ;) AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE Altmode: 2010 Camaro Licensor: GM Previous Name Use: G1, G2, Universe, Classic, Universe2, Movie1, TF:A, RotF Previous Mold Use: RotF Function: Bodyguard Motto: "Whoever called it the 'fairer sex' never met her." STR 6 INT 8 SPD 6 END 5 RNK 5 COUR 10 FRB 3 SKL 9 Avg 6.5 Same techspec numbers as every other Bumblebee toy in the movie line. Color Swaps: Almost none...but the piece that forms the front of the abdomen and the pelvis was changed from swirly yellow to black. Paint Apps: On the plus side, the simple stripes on the top of the car are replaced by stripes with thin black borders around them, which does look nicer. There's a black Autobot symbol in the middle of the hood, with the stripes breaking around it. On the neutral side, the foglamps are no longer painted but the top of the airdam is, and there's stripes along the doors with Cybertronian glyphs embedded in them. The face is the same as before, but the eyes are lighter blue. The red Autobot symbol from the right leg is moved to the left leg and made a little smaller, and the red dot on the forehead has been removed. On the decidedly minus side, though, the rear triangle bits of the side windows are unpainted, marring what would otherwise be a uniformly better paint job. I guess the door stripes (needed to clearly differentiate the vehicle modes) added too much to the production cost and they decided to trim the window paints. Also, the windows that are painted are a lighter metallic blue then the original of the mold. Mold Changes: None that I noticed. Other Notes: Come on, we've got way too many variant Bumblebees already, why not use this set to throw Cliffjumper a bone? I guess they thought that a fan-pandering character like Shadow Striker would need a core character to get it to sell, like how all the really interesting Justice League sets have an obligatory Batman or Superman in them. Time to see how dye-able this plastic is, I suppose. ;) [Later note: not very. Room temperature for 24 hours does nothing, and I've found most Transformers to have distressingly low deformation temperatures.] Overall: So little difference from the original that there's really no reason to get this set just to get another Bumblebee. It's an okay mold, just uninspiring, and I'm disappointed they didn't do more with the redeco. DECEPTICON: SHADOW STRIKER Altmode: Street Racer Licensor: None Previous Name Use: No mass market (BotCon 2003) Previous Mold Use: Universe2 Function: Psychological Warfare Motto: "Whassamatter, can't handle fightin' a GIRL?" STR 6 INT 8 SPD 8 END 5 RNK 2 COUR 5 FRB 4 SKL 6 Avg 5.5 Not actually in 2003 Shadow Striker's colors, more like Flamewar in look and attitude. One might argue that the gold face is closer to Shadow Striker, but everything else is Flamewar. Neither of them share techspec numbers with this figure, though. Color Swaps: Orange becomes black, gray becomes deep red. Paint Apps: The side windows are painted in a pretty good match to the deep red plastic, the taillights are a brighter red. The headlights are yellow, and a light purple Decepticon symbol blends into the black of the hood front. Unlike Wheelie, there's no paint on the supercharger bump or along the running boards and front fenders. The only additional paint for robot mode is a gold face with red eyes. It has a simple elegance, so I suppose more paint isn't really necessary, but something on the kneecaps would be nice. The slingshot is left unpainted, which is probably a good idea, further differentiating this from Wheelie. Still, given how many fewer paint apps she has compared to Wheelie, you'd think they could have coughed up those windows on Bumblebee. Mold Changes: None that I noticed. Of course, given the embarrassing lips they added to the original Shadow Striker, having no changes at all is probably preferable. Other Notes: I wonder if they considered naming this Night Racer at any point? :) Overall: It's a nice redeco of a good mold, although the fact that it will likely inspire BB/SS shipfic may not be a good thing. Dave Van Domelen, off to dunk the spare Bumblebee in his red dye vat.