Dave's Transformers Animated Rant: Activators Wave 4 Bandit Lockdown (not reviewed) Megatron (Earth Mode) Grimlock Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/TFA/Basic4 Bandit Lockdown is a black/purple/red redeco that looks decent (green plastic replaced with purple, black stays black, main paint color is red), but I'm not interested in getting any more copies of that mold. The wave seems to also be shipping with more of Patrol Bumblebee and/or Thundercracker. CAPSULES Bandit Lockdown: Original mold was Neutral, and while the new colors are nice, they're not really enough to bring it above "very mildly recommended if you don't have the original". $8.44 at Wal-Mart (yes, more than what they charge for Deluxes right now) Megatron: Decent in both modes, fairly simple transformation even for an Activator. Not sure why they chose the wrong plastic color, unless it was to avoid looking the same as Grimlock. Mildly recommended. $8.44 at Wal-Mart. Grimlock: One of the best Activators, although that's damning with faint praise. Same basic transformation as Megatron, but he makes it work better. Recommended. $8.44 at Wal-Mart. RANTS Packaging: Same as Wave 1. Function and motto not provided, I'll just copy in the ones I like from other toys of the same characters. Co-sells are the other two in the wave. No catalogs. DECEPTICON: MEGATRON Altmode: Attack Helicopter Function: Ultimate Intergalactic Tyrant Previous Name Use: Yes Previous Mold Use: No Callouts: "Button activates quick conversion!" "Press here!" "Spring-Loaded vehicle to robot change!" Motto: "Crush the Autobots!" MEGATRON is the ultimate power behind the DECEPTICON army. He is the first and most dangerous warrior ever to come from CYBERTRON. Nothing less than total domination of the universe and absolute control of the power of the AllSpark will satisfy him. First warrior to come from Cybertron? As in, the very first warrior, or just the first to leave Cybertron and go conquering? Hm. Packaging: Five twist-ties. Robot Mode: 4.25" (11cm) tall. Oddly, while the animation model (shown nicely on the packaging) is mostly medium-dark gray with a lighter gray face, the toy is made of lighter gray plastic with a medium-dark gray face. As usual, it's also missing most of the black line paint. He's also the king of backpackage, with big chunks of vehicle mode just hanging there. His rotors cannot be removed to use as weapons, although oddly his fists have pegholes. Mostly made of a slightly silvery light gray plastic. Some of the internal bits, plus the tail chunk along his spine and his vehicle mode gun are made of very dark gray plastic. The paint apps are kinda weird, like they decided to go with as much stuff visible from the front as possible, never mind how odd it'd look from the sides. Three of the five exposed facings on each fist are painted, for instance, or the fronts of the kneecaps but not the sides. He has a medium gray paint on the face and the dots at the front of his cheekpieces on the helmet. A dark gray (almost black) is on most of each fist, the front of the pelvis, the front of each shin, and some bits only visible in vehicle mode. A sort of blood red paint on three facings of his shoulder tips, on the shoulder bolts, the fronts of the abdomen flanks (but not the sides), the fronts of the kneecaps, the tops and sides of the toes (but not the front tips), and on the eyes. The raised Decepticon symbol on his chest is painted purple. Aside from the gray inversion, though, it looks good from the front. You don't really miss the missing black lines. The head turns, the waist does not. Universal joint shoulders, plus they can shrug back a bit on transformation joints. Upper arm swivels, hinge elbows that bend almost 180 degrees. The wrists are disc-in-slot swivels, a very nice touch. Ball joint hips and knees, and the knees can bend sideways a little bit for transformation. The ankles are stiff hinges, and can bend through a pretty good range. He has long heel spurs to counter the backpack, and it generally works, but it doesn't take too much to tip him backwards. Undocumented feature: He has a sort of punching spring-action gimmick available thanks to the automorph springs on his shoulder joints. Pull his arm back, and it snaps forward. Okay, this probably isn't an undocumented feature in the "they probably meant this to be there, but it got left out of the instructions" sense I usually mean, but it's still kinda nifty. Transformation: Legs peg together, toes point down, arms fold up against the shoulders. Then just split between chest and abdomen and pull the chest up to swing the head away and fold down the cockpit to lock the mode. The legs just rest in a slot against the tail, they don't lock. You can tuck the arms away a little better if you want, but it'll interfere with transforming back to robot mode. When going back to robot mode, don't forget to snap the chest onto the abdomen, it takes a bit of force. Vehicle Mode: Well, it more or less looks like his helicopter mode, but the chest is way too big of a chunk on the undercarriage, especially since it won't lock very well in place, and juts out an extra few millimeters. There's wheels on his toetips, which is odd considering that the heelspurs keep you from folding the toes down to act as landing gear. And the rotors are practically at 45 degrees away from horizontal, pretty extreme. It's totally gerwalk-able, though. 5.25" (13cm) long, 3.25" (8cm) from center to center of the rotors, each blade sweeps out a circle 3" (7.5cm) in diameter. The nose cannon (which is rather small, proportionally speaking) and tail are dark charcoal plastic. The cockpit is painted red with dark charcoal borders. The trigger button near the rear of the tail is painted bright red. No Decepticon symbol visible in this mode. The nose gun is not made to be removable, and the rotors cannot adjust angle, although they spin freely. Overall: A decent effort in both mods, somewhat lazy transformation even by Activators standards. Looks nice from the front, but practically begs to get repainted. AUTOBOT: GRIMLOCK Altmode: Tyrannosaurus Rex Previous Name Use: G1, G2, BW, RiD, Universe, Alternators, Classic Previous Mold Use: None Callouts: Same as on Megatron Motto: "Where are DECEPTICONS? Me GRIMLOCK getting hungry!" One of the first robots brought to life on Earth by the power of the AllSpark, GRIMLOCK is the leader of the DINOBOTS. Though he originally fell prey to the manipulation of MEGATRON, he now understands that Earth and the AUTOBOTS deserve his friendship and protection. There's nothing he enjoys more than melting DECEPTICONS into scrap with his flame breath. Packaging: Five twist-ties. Robot Mode: 4" (10cm) tall, a bit longer-armed than the Voyager but otherwise a pretty good representation from the front. Really, the only way he stows beast bits differently than the Voyager is to leave his tail intact and just fold it up, rather than splitting to be along the sides of the boots. However, if Megatron is king of the backpackers, Grimlock is the God Emperor. Loose ankles are a big problem, at least on mine. At least I know it's sturdy, given all the dives it's taken off the table. Anyway, it's probably a good idea to leave the tail folded down as a tripod leg, to compensate for the ankles. The hands, thighs, elbow vicinity and some internal bits are made of a pale gold plastic (no swirls). The rest of the toy is a medium gray that would have worked really well as Megatron's main plastic color. Lots of gold paint, natch. Chest, shoulder deco, toes, plus some beast bits. Dark red on the collar, abdomen, shoulder jewels and some beast bits. The center of his chest, the bit that's clear on the Voyager, is metallic yellow. The head is painted black with a light blue visor. There's a red and white Autobot symbol printed on the center of the chest, and a silver one printed on the backpack. The head turns a tiny bit before the chin crashes against his collar, the waist doesn't turn at all. The shoulders swivel, with lift-to-the-side hinges that are there purely for robot mode, a nice touch. There's an unused upper arm hinge that's meant for beast mode and doesn't do much good here. Ball joint elbows and wrists. Ball joint hips and knees, with the same side to side play for transformation that Megatron has. Hinge ankles that are, as mentioned, kinda loose. They also have a narrower range than Megatron's. Transformation: Nearly identical to Megatron's, actually. Instead of tucking to the sides, the robot arms become beast legs, the hinge is between torso and pelvis rather than chest and abdomen, and the top shell has a few more folds, but it's essentially the same transformation. The only substantive difference is that the boots clip a little more securely to the tail than on Megatron. Still, it works a little better here, especially because of the clipping action. Also, the head and neck fold up more, which makes the backpack a bit more compact. Although it doesn't always automatically fold closed. One of the rare Activators without a red trigger button. It's just unpainted gold plastic. A final note on the differences between this and Megatron. The little things, like where the torso hinge is, mean that the tail ends up able to act as a tripod leg in robot mode, something Megatron can't do with his tail. Beast Mode: 5.75" (14.5cm) from snout to tail tip, he can stand equally well in the modern "horizontal body" pose or the classic "tail dragging" pose, although the head can't look down at anything in the latter. He has some undercarriage junk from his robot legs hanging between his beast legs, but the robot chest hides inside the beast torso well. There's a clever bit where there's a hole on is back to show the robot mode Autobot symbol, although they had to gild the lily by adding a silver Autobot symbol on the left side of the torso. The tiny forelegs are pale gold plastic, and the activator button at the root of the tail is also pale gold plastic. The neck is painted gold, and he has his red stripes on the back and sides. His eyes are light blue bordered with black/dark gray. The top of his tail is painted gold, but not the sides. The shovel-like lower jaw opens, but that's it for head articulation. His forelimbs are on swivels, and the tail is hinged so it can flip up. His hind legs have all the joints of the robot arms, and more. The upper arm hinge becomes the knee, the elbows are now ankles, and the wrists are toe joints. The balance is very good, he can stand on just his feet and suffer the indiginity of my shaky computer table without falling over. Overall: About my only complaint about this toy is that it costs more than a Deluxe at Wal-Mart right now. At $8.44, Activators ar really pushing the price/value ratio. That aside, this is a very good Scout-class toy which, like Starscream before it, almost works better at this size than at the Voyager size. Dave Van Domelen, making room for these guys in his Dinobot and Megatron setups. But not in that order.