Dave's Transformers Universe Rant Ultra Wave 6: - Autobot Whirl with Gunbarrel and Makeshift - Magna Stampede and Stockade with Prowl and Terradive Okay, these are perhaps a tad overpriced for recolors, especially the second set, which is essentially 2 2/3 Basics. But they're good molds. Whirl is Machine Wars Sandstorm with some mold changes, Magna Stampede is Battle Unicorn, Stockade is Tank Drone, and the Mini-Cons are not renamed. CAPSULES Autobot Whirl: All the molds involved are pretty good, and the color schemes aren't bad, but there's a serious lack of value here. If Whirl had been more extensively remolded I might be able to recommend getting this at full price, but as it stands, no. Mildly recommended, and only if money isn't an issue to you. $19.76 at Wal-Mart. Magna Stampede and Stockade: All decent, but not spectacular molds. Magna Stampede has some rather interesting features, and is notable for being a mold that was really hard to find the first time around. If you don't have Battle Unicorn, mildly recommended. Otherwise, as with Whirl, not really worth the money. $19.76 at Wal-Mart. RANTS Original Reviews: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Armada/MiniCon5 (all Mini-Cons) http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/BMac/BMBasic5 (Battle Unicorn) http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/BMac/BMBasic4 (Tank Drone) I no longer have Machine Wars reviews linked in, so I'll cut and paste Sandstorm's. It's worth noting that these two sets seem to have been molded together, as they share a lot of colors in common. AUTOBOT WHIRL Packaging: Standard Ultra box, but the Mini-Cons are twist-tied in and bubbled in VERY tightly. I ended up having to break Gunbarrel into four pieces to get it out AFTER cutting the twist-tie, and Makeshift's ties required cutting the bubble tray apart in order to even get at two of them. Comes with the old strip-poster that only goes up through Ratchet and Infernalert and a single-sided small instructions sheet. Whirl's transformation isn't much more complicated than a Mini-Con's, after all (although it was something for the time, as indicated in the original review). The instructions do NOT show the weapon modes of the Mini-Cons. Old review of Sandstorm between the lines. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Helicopter Mode: Nice camo pattern...it's more jungle camo than desert, but oh well. No significant undercarriage garbage, but a lot of tail garbage, as the normally slender helicopter tail is widened into a double tail so that the robot mode arms can fit inside. Effective use of clear blue plastic. Still has the pushbutton gimmick which drops the turbines down to the side as weapon pods. 9 inches (22cm) long and 3.5 inches (9cm) tall. Transformation: Pretty complicated. You do need to remove the turbines before transforming or they get in the way. Once you have the hang of it, though, there's no unnecessary complications or places where excessive force is required. Robot Mode: Less stable than I would like. The tabs for keeping the shoulders in place aren't the right size, leading to loose fits. And there's no tab to secure the cockpit/chest. The legs could have been made much more poseable, in a Hero Optimus Prime sort of way, with little effort, but the effort was not made, and the legs are joined at the knees. The legs also have the ability to bend the wrong way, necessary for the transformation. The arms can bend at the elbow and swing out at the shoulder, but not rotate at the shoulder, so dynamic poses are pretty much out. And the head is fixed in position. 7 inches (17cm) tall. Gimmicks: Not many left. As mentioned above, in copter mode his turbines can spring down to gun pod position. And he's got glowing eyes. Nothing else remains. Stickers: Sandstorm's the worst when it comes to black stickers on black bodyparts, or stickers which obscure paintjobs and make things uniform. Stickers 3-4 seem to go on the leading edge of the landing skids, and 5-6 on the outside of the tail fins, but those are guesses. Haven't found a good home for 1-2 yet. 9-10 and 13-14 are pointless. Overall: Pretty cool for a ten dollar toy, despite the flaws. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yeah, he was a ten dollar toy. That's inflation for ya. You know, for the price boost they put on this, it would have been nice if they'd put some Mini-Con hardpoints on the toy. All they really did was add in new missiles and restore the springs to the launchers. (Side note: with a thin drill bit and some patience, I turned the pegs on the guns into hardpoints, ha!) The rotors, canopy, engine rear chunks and lightpipe eyes are clear yellow plastic (this was one of the first molds to have lightpipe eyes). The helicopter is mostly dark bolue with light blue arctic camo patterning and some light and very light gray robot kibble visible. The engines are very light gray with barn red paint camo patterns and black scorching patterns on the intakes. There's an Autobot symbol tampographed on the rotor housing's front. The colors aren't really G1 Whirl's, but they do kinda evoke the old design. A little. The robot mode holds together a bit better in this version than for Sandstorm. One thing I forgot to mention in the original review is that an Autobot symbol is molded into the top of the canopy, although it's not as visible in the yellow plastic. The new missiles are dark barn red, 2.75" (7cm) long, and rather ornate. They can be placed in the launcher in any orientation that'll fit, no annoying "trigger notch on only one side" thing here. Makeshift: Main fuselage and rotor engines are now dark barn red with gold canopy and some orange paint on the tail. The rotor blades and "wings" are light gray, and the rotor centers (that hold the blades) are dark gray. The nose is painted silver. In robot mode, the upper legs are dark gray, the face is gold with yellow eyes. Gunbarrel: Mostly a pale gold plastic with white robot arms and dark gray robot thighs.. There's plenty of black paint on the wings and fuselage, and there's silver paint on the thruster that's on the nose piece and is only visible in weapon mode, plus silver on the robot chest. The face is white with orange eyes. The hips aren't as liable to pop off as on my original version Gunbarrel. Overall: Overpriced. Decent molds, but not great, and not really worth twenty bucks, even if you don't have the originals (which I do). MAGNA STAMPEDE AND STOCKADE Packaging: Same joy as Whirl. Everything's in a plastic tray, and most of the twist-ties can't be undone until the tray is separated from the cardboard, but a few ties have to be undone before this can be accomplished. And the smaller fiddly ties can't easily be cut without gouging the figure. At least the plastic tray isn't glued down, just held by the twist-ties. Magna Stampede has WAY too long ties twisted dozens of times each, but they're too tight in to snip without undoing at least somewhat, and even then it practically had to be dismembered to remove from the tray. In short, both new Ultra Universe sets have aggressively annoying packaging. The instructions are double-sided, but do not show the weapon modes here either. Of course, it's not like either of the "big" toys has a Powerlinx hardpoint to attach them. Nor can they really be kitbashed on, like with Whirl. Sorry, AUTOBOT Whirl. Magna Stampede: This really hard to find figure from the tail end of Beast Machines (I only got one because Shad found the only two to make it to Lansing, and saved me one) is repainted as a unicorn zebra with pale gold barding, a metallic blue tail, a copper horn and a gold mane with really nice black wash. The spark crystal on the front shoulder has an Autobot symbol tampographed over it. Metallic blue armor bits are painted here and there. Robot mode reveals more metallic blue, on the upper arms, shins neck and helmet horn. The robot head is made of pale gold plastic with a red airbrush on the helmet and the aforementioned metallic blue horn. The eyes are bright blue, not quite the same as the metallic blue elsewhere. Not mentioned in the original review, but discovered soon after that, the combined axe/whip weapon can be inserted in the figure's back as a samurai's battle banner. Overall, this mold is about as good now as it was several years ago. It has bulk issues and some weird jointing, but a really cool transformation for a Basic and a good samurai feel. Would I advocate dropping twenty bucks just to get this figure? No. But it does make the entire set worth getting if you don't have Battle Unicorn, since the other figures are decent. Stockade: This is an Autobot recolor of the Tank Drone, a solid Basic from Beast Machines (BMac Vehicon Basics were generally good). The main colors of this version are dark barn red, a golden yellow and medium gray, with lots of black paint and some pale gold pieces (like the cannon barrel). The spark crystal has an Autobot symbol tampographed on it. The missile is opaque golden yellow. The head is kinda odd, with the lower half being the dark barn red and the upper scalp being golden yellow, with a red eyeslit. Overall, the color scheme is kinda garish and weird. One of the wheels on mine had a big chunk of flash, which I had to carve off before it'd roll. The rolling-and-firing gimmick doesn't work too well, but that was a problem for the original. Overall, a decent figure in odd colors that almost hearken back to the first waves of Universe. Get him and have him stand surrounded by his chromed Vehicon brothers...as they prepare to noogie him into oblivion. Terradive: Mostly white plastic with black pelvis, thighs, toes and nosewheel. Gold paint decorates the canopy and wings, with orange paint on the thruster nozzles. There's also some metallic blue paint on the tip of the nose and on the canards. The front end of mine doesn't hold together very well, there's a mold error on the tiny peg. And the massive amount of white looks kinda boring. Prowl: Light gray where the original is clear blue (and where the Smokescreen recolor is red), dark maroon where the original is white (and the other recolor is blue). Black windows and golden yellow (non-metallic) stripes decorate this, with very pale yellow headlights. There is no paint on the police lights on the roof. The robot face has gold paint on it with a red eyeslit. The wheels, bumper and robot thighs are very dark gray. Overall: The big selling point on this one is Magna Stampede. If you don't have Battle Unicorn, it might be worth picking up this set for MS. If you're one of us lucky folk who found Battle Unicorn, though, it's overpriced for what you get. Dave Van Domelen, hopes he finds a Transformer he can be *enthusiastic* about soon.