Dave's Studio Series Rant: Deluxe Wave 6 #39 Cogman (redeco of TLK version) #40 Shatter (muscle car) #41 Constructicon Scrapmetal (excavator) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/Deluxe6 I still don't plan to get a complete Devastator, but Scrapmetal is a character who hasn't gotten a toy before, and may not even have really shown up in the movie in any consistent way. Plus, it looked decent in the box. https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/TFLK/DeluxeP3 - Cogman original review CAPSULES $20 price point. Cogman: Original was mildly recommended mostly for a significant flaw or two messing with an otherwise good design. This one still has the design-related flaws, but is aesthetically superior, plus this one actually hit stores in decent quantities. Recommended. Shatter: Ugh. I mean, it's a decent design, but the execution fails on so many levels. A toy should not fall apart repeatedly during careful play. While not as bad as some of the Bumblebee toys in this line, it's not worth picking up. Constructicon Scrapmetal: I was initially reluctant to pick up any of the new Constructicons, but this one is a very good standalone toy, and even its combiner mode works on its own (it turns into a big hand, so Gigahand's little brother). Has a few design problems that keep it from being strongly recommended, but definitly a solid Recommended. RANTS Packaging: Same as previous waves. There's licensing info on Cogman and Shatter, but not Scrapmetal (whose altmode is inspired by a Volvo excavator). Scrapmetal doesn't have a Decepticon symbol on the side of his box, he has Devastator's face in icon form. Shatter, for some reason, has an Autobot symbol. AUTOBOT: COGMAN Assortment: #39 Altmode: Aston Martin DB11 Transformation Difficulty: 19 steps Previous Name Use: TFtLK Previous Mold Use: TFtLK Movie: Last Knight Scene: London Escape While speeding through the streets of London, COGMAN remembers to tell Sir Edmund Burton that Agnes called for a snuggle. Packaging: Six ties hold the robot into the blister, two hold the sword. A long rubber band looped around twice keeps the head from falling off in the package. The backdrop is a London street scene with police cars and civilians sort of crashing into each other with sparks flying as they're about to go through an old stone gateway I feel like I should recognize. Color Swaps: Black stays black and clear stays clear, but the light gray gets replaced by two different colors. A dark silver or light gunmetal plastic is used on pretty much every light gray piece that doesn't have vehicle shell pieces, while the vehicle shell pieces are made of darkish gray. The Headmaster has dark gray arms and head, otherwise light gunmetal. Paint Apps: There's NO dirt paint apps, thankfully. LOTS of silver paint, all the vehicle shell pieces are painted silver (where they aren't clear or an accent color), most of the forearms, the shoulder fronts, shin fronts, part of the pecs, the wheel hubs, and the sword blade. A dark dull gold, almost bronze paint is used on face details, parts of the pecs, and the abdominal cogs. The eyes are painted bright blue, the taillights are painted red, the window trim and side mirrors are painted black. The sections along the bottom edge that are painted black on the original are just left unpainted dark gray here, the other obvious differences in vehicle mode are that the silver is shinier and the roof is silver rather than black. The grille is left unpainted dark gray as well, so it stands out more than the unpainted light gray one on the original. Mold Changes: None that I noticed, unless the pelvis piece got very slight thickening. Too bad they didn't do anything about the heels and the figure's tendency to fall over backwards. Other Notes: The joints were very floppy, but that was mostly mold release oil, and washing the figure in soapy water got things to the point I didn't feel a need to do any other joint tricks. Still kinda loose. I'm not feeling any fragility in the pelvis front's joint, although admittedly that could have been a sign of knockoff-ness in my original. Overall: Even if the pelvis issue was just due to being a knockoff, this version has two big advantages over the original. The main one is that it's not total scalper bait. The lack of dirt paint is a significantly lesser thing, but still a big plus in my book. DECEPTICON: SHATTER Assortment: #40 Altmode: 1971 Plymouth GTX custom Transformation Difficulty: 23 steps Previous Name Use: BB Previous Mold Use: None Movie: Bumblebee Scene: Decepticon Arrival Arriving on Earth in 1987, SHATTER disguises herself as a 1971 Plymouth GTX and begins her search for AUTOBOT criminals. There are reports of problems with her shoulders. The ball joints pop off a little easily on mine, but they're not broken or defective. The real problem comes during transformation, where they pop off so easily in so many steps of transformation that you're better off just taking them off at the start and replacing them at the end. Packaging: Six ties on the robot, no separate accessories. The backpack isn't properly attached, in order to fit in the thickness of the box. The backdrop is the middle of nowhere gas station that gets partly blown up when Shatter and Dropkick crash-landed. Robot Mode: You gotta properly peg the backpack or the articulation gets all blocked up. And it's not great to start with...oh, there's plenty of joints, but things are prone to falling off because a weak connection is next to a stiff joint. The proportions look a bit off, too leggy with thick thighs thanks to car kibble, not enough to balance it. Raising the fender flaps over the shoulders helps a little. The abdomen and thighs have a lot of jet details molded on them, while the shins have the front grille pattern found on a regular GLX but not found on this toy's actual vehicle mode. Oh, and she has a battle mask face going on, without her vision slit picked out by paint, so she looks eyeless. 5.25" (13cm) tall in a mix of red, black, silver, and gunmetal. Black plastic is used on the arm cannons, upper arms, neck, most of the shoulders, the abdomen and pelvis, hip struts, knees, calves, and feet. Much of the backpack is clear colorless plastic. The rest is bright red plastic, including little panels in front of the shoulders. Lots of gunmetal paint on the shins, thighs, abdomen, forearms, chest center, and face. The chin is silver, as is the bit of actual front grille visible on the chest. There's metallic blue stripes on the top of the helmet. The neck is a ball joint, no waist joint. The shoulders are loose ball and socket joints (cleaning the mold release oil off helped a little), the elbows are swivel and hinge joints with the swivel at the connection to the upper arm and the hinge part soft ratcheting. The hips are very restricted ball joints, the knees are double ratcheting hinges that still manage to have very little effective range. There's also a swivel just above each knee. The ankles are double hinges, but use most of their range just folding up enough to look properly attached. The hands can hold 5mm pegs, and there's 5mm sockets on the outer and inner faces of the forearms mainly meant for the arm cannons. The inner faces are where the cannons go in vehicle mode. The forearm cannons can be removed and held as pistols, being 1.75" (4.2cm) long with the 5mm pegs just back of the midpoint. There's a 3mm socket on the small of the back, but it's hard to get at thanks to the backpack. Transformation: Oy. Might as well remove the arms and the front fenders before you start and put them back on at the end, because they will not stay on during transformation. Even cleaning the mold oil off, which helped with the looseness of the shoulders in robot mode, did nothing to stop the arms from just popping off repeatedly. Going back to robot mode is even WORSE, with not only the arms falling off, but the fenders stay connected to the wrong pegs. On top of that serious issue, there's just a lot of unstable panels that need to be snapped together around too much robot, with a lot of it just sort of hanging out under the jacked up chassis. Other than taking the weapons off the forearms and putting them on the other sides of the forearms, though, I was able to figure it all out without the instructions. Once everything's in place, it's fairly solid except for the forearms really just held in by joint friction. One of the two fists actually catches on a small detail and snaps into place, but I can't get the other to do the same on the seemingly symmetric pieces. Vehicle Mode: It's a jacked up and pimped out muscle car with a paint scheme that evokes her jet mode, including the number 722 on each rear fender, which I think was from the jet mode's tail number? Not that I can find any clear pictures of her jet mode to compare (and none of the toys have the correct Harrier altmode for her jet version, so I can't really trust them on any details). It has the jacked up suspension (all the better to carry robot kibble underneath), a big turbocharger poking out through the hood, a bit of rollbar on the front window and roof lights. 5" (12.5cm) long, making it about 1:40 scale, mostly red in front and black in back. The body shell is mostly red plastic, but the roof is the same clear colorless plastic as the windows. The roll cage on the windshield and the tires are black plastic. The roof and posts are painted gloss black, as is the trunk, the rear fenders and back end in general. There's an interrupted black stripe horizontally across the hood. The supercharger and the pipes under each door are painted gunmetal, the front end (which replaces the grille with even more headlights) is silver, and there's silver on the rear bumper as well. The taillights are left unpainted red, and 722 is printed in white on each rear fender. Ground clearance is minimal thanks to the kibble, and the hinged wheel supports can lead to somewhat wobbly rolling. Other than the arms just sort of hanging on the underside, it's reasonably solid once all the panels are propertly together. Overall: Well, if not for all the pieces that tend to fall off, it'd be a decent design. But it's another case of being something where Hasbro's manufacturing can't cash the checks their designers write. It just falls apart too many ways too easily to be a good toy. DECEPTICON: CONSTRUCTICON SCRAPMETAL Assortment: #41 Altmode: Excavator Transformation Difficulty: 24 steps Previous Name Use: None ("Scrapmetal" alone was Cybertron) Previous Mold Use: None Movie: RotF Scene: Pyramid Desert Battle CONSTRUCTICON SCRAPMETAL combines with his comrades to form CONSTRUCTICON DEVASTATOR. Yeah, they couldn't be bothered to give him any personality here either. Packaging: The excavator shovel is position like a third leg, as there's no room for it in any other way. Seven ties on the robot, one on the shield panel. For some reason, the left hand is folded away inside the forearm. The right hand was out, but closed and kinda hard to open up. The legs are straight instead of digitigrade, but that was obviously needed to fit inside the box. A lot of steps just to get it into correct robot mode.... The backdrop is the pyramids at Giza, I think as seen from inside the Sphinx's pit, with a robot shadow cast in the wrong direction for the other shadows in the scene, oops. (I think it's Scrapmetal's shadow, not Devastator's.) Robot Mode: Definitely his own thing, it doesn't really resemble any other Constructicon. Between the overly long torso and how going to proper digitigrade stance shortens the legs, he almost has a simian look to him. Scrapmetal solidly occupies the uncanny valley of proportions, not really looking human or "giant robot," while not going all the way to fully inhuman like Rampage. The main colors are yellow and black, but more of a slightly brownish and desaturated yellow as seen on construction vehicles, appropriately enough. Unfortunately, the mostly black face all but hides the eyes, which are painted but not prominently enough. There's safety rail epaulets, which I found out the hard way can pop off if you're careless during transformation. They snap back on, though. 5.25" (13cm) tall with legs in proper position, add about a centimeter for a straight-legged pose as seen in the package. Most of the toy is that construction yellow color plastic. Silvery light gray plastic is used on the neck base, the shoulder struts, the elbow joints, the left hand thumb, vehicle mode rollers in the belt area and "shins" (tarsals), and the short shin joints that could pass for knee joints in a straight-legged pose. There's also a hidden gray spine piece that's not really visible in any mode, oddly. Black plastic is less prevalent than one might initially thing, really just on the right thumb and the tread pieces on the legs (the outer thighs are yellow, though). The toes and heels are yellow. Most of the paint on the toy is gloss black: face, lots of chest and abdomen detail, shoulder roots, details on the mitten fingers, abdomen sides, parts of the right forearm, shoulder front vents, and details on the shovel folded up on the back. There's gunmetal paint bits on the chest, and on the sides of the tread parts of the legs. Metallic blue paint is used on some headlight details on the torso sides, and the window on the right hand. The eyes are painted dull red. There is no Decepticon symbol. A lot of ball joints: neck, shoulders, elbows, and hips. There's also ratcheting hinges between the biceps and the elbow (mostly for transformation), double hinged knees, hinged toes and heels, hinged wrists with thumbs on their own hinge. There's swivels just below the hips (the arms don't need swivels because of the ball joint elbows). Unfortunately, a major flaw in the toy is that it's very hard to get the thumbs OUT of the hands without using a knife. The thumbs have 5mm arcs in them with the intent that the thumbs can hold pegs in place, but they don't really catch on pegs properly, so trying to get a firm grip just ends up making the peg squirt out and the thumb hide inside the hand. There's a 5mm socket on the left forearm, intended for holding the shield. There's a 3mm socket inside the folded shovel, just lift the shovel part away a little to reveal it. There's also some 3mm pegs on the backs of the shoulders for securing the arms in altmode, but they will hold Siege Fire Blasts. The shield itself has one 5mm peg on the underside, and a detail that looks like a short 5mm peg on the front, but it's slightly too wide. The shield is a single piece of yellow plastic 1.75" (4.5cm) long and 0.75" (2cm) wide, which becomes a cover in vehicle mode. It also has some tabs on the bottom that are used to connect it to vehicle mode. Transformation: The hands tuck into the forearms, then the torso sides fold away. The chest can then pull out a little to let the head flip back. Those 3mm pegs snap into place in holes on the sides of the upper spine and the shovel pulls away. The pelvis folds down 90 degrees so that the legs can turn into the treads (the upper thigh swivels are used to rotate most of the leg around after everything is straightened). The right arm just lays down on top, while the left arm folds up to complete the center bit. Then the shield is tabbed on top of it to cover up the obvious arm-ness. The end result is very stable and sturdy. Vehicle Mode: Based on a Volvo excavator, a slightly smaller variety than usually seen as Transformers, but still a full-sized excavator rather than the sort you rent to do yard projects (as I'd initially thought). It isn't a "turret" design, using its treads to turn the direction of the shovel. Almost no robot bits are visible in this mode, with the chest basically being on the underside and everything else folded up. (Neither of the shovel-like hands from robot mode are actually shovels in this mode, both are hidden away.) The chassis is 3.75" (9cm) long and 2.5" (6cm) wide, while the shovel can stretch to 5" (12cm) long. The total length with the shovel fully stretched to the front is 7.75" (19cm). Black is de-emphasized, with the non-tread parts being overwhelmingly yellow with only a few black details, mostly on the cab (left of the shovel) and the cables and hydraulics of the shovel arm. Almost all the silvery gray is hidden in this mode. Still no Decepticon symbol. The shovel has hinges at shoulder, elbow, and wrist. It rolls pretty well on three rollers on the underside, although with only three rollers it has to skid to turn. Hand Mode: Well, it's the left hand of Devastator, rather than being the waist or part of a shoulder or something, so it can actually look like something meaningful on its own (see: Gigahand). From vehicle mode, pull the robot arms out and back, then lay the shovel between them, to get a three-fingered claw. A rectangular attachment peg folds out from the root of the shovel arm. On Devastator, Hightower provides the thumb, but you can fold one of the treads out as a thumb if you want it to look like a hand on its own. There really isn't a good place to put the shield piece in this mode. I mean, it can be attached to the forearm socket, but it looks dumb stuck to the side of a finger. There's a slot on the sternum that can almost hold a 5mm peg, but it's not very stable. Overall: Surprisingly good for something whose job is to be the hand of a combiner. Solid and reasonably simple design that looks pretty good in all modes, and suffers very little from "things fall apart" syndrome (unlike most Studio Series Deluxes). Dave Van Domelen, back to Siege toys now. Or maybe a brief look at the Wave 2 BotBots blind package set.