Dave's RoadBots Rant 1:32 Lamborghini Murcielago 1:32 Toyota Supra 1:32 Hummer H3 Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Alt/RoadBot4 I pre-ordered these from BBTS in August 2007, finally got 'em in October 2008. HappyWell has been unhappy, apparently. See http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Alt/RoadBot1 for the fanfic background used to set up the bio notes I wrote for these guys. As with all RoadBots, they have no official names or personalities. This is gonna be terser than before. I simply found myself not really caring anymore halfway through trying to review the H3 (the first one I opened), but I don't want to leave it completely blank. CAPSULES Lamborghini Murcielago: Looks pretty good in both mode, generally competent without being great. Suffers from the usual RoadBot defects, though. Mildly recommended. $9.99 at BBTS.com. Toyota Supra: The robot mode is very kibbly but generally manages to work around it. Clever transformation, good vehicle mode. Mildly recommended (both better in some ways and worse in othes compared to the Lambor). $9.99 at BBTS.com. Hummer H3: Robot mode pretty much crippled by kibble, transformation is a mess of partformering and panelmastering, but the vehicle is decent if you get all the bits in the right places. Mild recommendation to avoid. $9.99 at BBTS.com. RANTS Packaging: Same as the other 1:32s. The Lamborghini has a reflection hologram sticker marking it as an official Lamborghini product. In addition to somewhat inadequate instructions, there's a separate sheet of choking hazards and battery warnings in twelve languages. ROADBOT: Baron Blaze Class: 32 Faction: DM Altmode: Lamborghini Murcielago LP580 Birthplace: Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy Motto: "Some fires just burn brighter than others." His official name is simply Blaze, but the self-styled aristocrat decided that he needed a title. After much complaining, he was finally granted a small Barony in the mountains of Italy through some of Diamond Motors' political connections. This, of course, only fed his acutely arrogant personality, and if he weren't so useful no one would bother to put up with him. The one person who actually seems to get along with him is Fireshot, his rival in TAG...and some suspect that this is because they share an interest in looking down their noses at "common" vehicles. Baron Blaze fancies himself a master of archaic combat, and he may well have the skills to back that up. In keeping with his idiom, he's named each of his weapons: Starheart, his plasma lance. Guiron, his laser ax. Hawkstalon, his multi-warhead crossbow that is capable of acting independently as a spydrone. Crescens, his bladed shield. And, of course, Foolcrusher, his mighty mace. His reliance on primarily melee weapons leaves him at something of a disadvantage at times, but the versatility of the bolts fired by Hawkstalon partially makes up for this. STR 7 INT 8 SPD 9 END 6 RNK 7 COUR 7 FRB 4 SKL 8 Avg 7 Robot Mode: 5.5" (14cm) tall, with a definite avian motif with big chunks of vehicle mode hanging off the back of his shoulders like wings and the car doors on his hips resembling a bird's tail. He has an aquiline and even snooty aristocratic expression. A mix of orange, dark red and gunmetal plastics. The car shell pieces are all orange, but none of the robot-only bits are. The head, joints, feet, abdomen and thighs are gunmetal. Pelvis, hips, upper arms and lower arms are dark red. The face is silver, the forehead crest painted orange, and the eyes are dark blue. The fists, forearm details, hip details and a bit on the pelvis are painted silver. His silver tailpipes stick out at the bottom of his chest as a sort of belly gun. Pretty good articulation with minimal kibble issues. The shoulders are a little weird, since they're on swivels sticking out from the wings...it's a universal joint overall, but not the usual way. The knees only bend a little, but the kibble on the hips can be gotten out of the way. Accessories: A big orange mace with gunmetal handle is the "big obvious" weapon. The LED chunk is made of dark red plastic and has a fake button symmetric with the real one. The two blades are a flame burst and a blade with shuriken in it that has GOT to be an intentional reference to Gamera's foe Guiron. There's the obligatory crappy chrome shield which tends to paintlock into the fist. There's a robot hawk weapon made of dark gunmetal plastic with a silver-painted beak, which I've named Hawkstalon. The front bumper pegs on Hawkstalon pretty much just to give it a place to go. It makes the weapon look worse. There's no place to put Hawkstalon other than a fist, sadly...a shoulder mount peg would have been nice. Transformation: Pretty straightforward in general, a lot of partformering, though. The doors tend to pop off during transformation. The chest pulls off and reattaches at the rear, and the front bumper is just sort of out there in robot mode, in addition to the obligatory shield-hood. Unsurprisingly, none of the weapons store in the vehicle mode other than the hood-shield. Lambors just don't have space to spare. Vehicle Mode: 5.5" (14cm) long orange sportscar. The windows and rear louvres are black gloss, as are vents on the front and rear. Headlights and tailpipes are silver, hubcaps are chrome silver. The tires are rubberized black plastic. None of the other robot plastic colors are visible here. The front license plate is black with a silver Murcielago logo. A silver Lamborghini logo is on the rear. Teeny "V12 6.2L" notes are printed on the side rears, and a little Lambor crest on the hood front. The turn signals are metallic red, the taillights mix silver with metallic red and orange. The doors do open, but it's hard to do so without them just popping off. There's extending struts to let them swing up and out. The trunk (okay, it's a rear bonnet) opens but there's no detailing inside. It holds together pretty well in general, though, once you have it all pegged right. Overall: It doesn't try to be too tricky in either mode, and succeeds at being a competent toy. ROADBOT: Suprasonic Class: 32 Faction: TAG Altmode: Toyota Supra mk IV Birthplace: Motomachi, Japan Motto: "Fast and loud, strong and proud!" The Alternators-derived technology used in RoadBots has always been theoretically capable of creating a ground vehicle able to travel faster than the speed of sound, but controlling it safely was another matter entirely. Suprasonic has a prototype guidance system that lets him step outside himself and use satellite cameras to drive himself as if he were playing a video game. This means that when he reaches the speed of sound, he actually stands a chance of not wrecking. It also means he tends to have a detached personality, always seeking bigger and louder sensations in an attempt to feel like he's inhabiting his own body. Unlike most RoadBots, he doesn't use a plasma lance. His sheer speed causes it to snuff out at the worst possible times. Instead, he carries a double-barrelled laser cannon and a superheated chainsaw for energy weapons. He also has a sword and axe with diamond-coated and nearly frictionless blades. He can deploy his laser cannon in vehicle mode, but it's limited to firing straight ahead, reducing its usefulness. STR 5 INT 6 SPD 10 END 8 RNK 5 COUR 7 FRB 8 SKL 6 Avg 6.875 Robot Mode: 5.25" (13cm) tall at the head, a bit more at the shoulderpads. Mostly metalflake chartreuse (yellow-green) and gunmetal. The chestplate, pelvis, forearms and shins are chartreuse, as are the various vehicle kibble bits, with the rest being gunmetal. There's gold paint on the chest, forearms and shins, black on the thighs, abdomen and forehead. The face is silver with metallic red eyes. Proportions are iffy, with the shins being about a centimeter shorter than they should be. He's got fender skirts on his hips and his car doors hanging off this big shoulderpads, plus rear bumper kneecaps. The kibble effect is fairly ugly, but doesn't get in the way as much as you'd think. In fact, if you leave off the shields, the arms are pretty free to move. The legs are a bit more restricted. The elbow ball joints are a bit loose, but nothing that can't be fixed up. Accessories: His LED block looks like a backpack, but can't be worn as one. His laser blaster tip is small and contains a chunk of front bumper, but the chainsaw attachment is nice. He has an axe that looks like a diving hawk, a big silver chrome pentagonal shield, and can use part of his vehicle mode as a second shield. His big weapon is a spatula sword made of chartreuse metalflake plastic with gold paint and a sort of snowflake molded motif. It'd have been nice to at least be able to attach this to the bottom of the vehicle. At least on mine, the button on the LED chunk tends to stay depressed unless I mess with it a bit to get it to turn off. Transformation: Wow. Okay, this is a lot more complicated than most RoadBots. The head sinks down, then the chest plate rotates 90 degrees and the whole chest core flips front to back bringing the hood and roof around to the other side and freeing up space for the shoulders to collapse in. The abdomen flips down to become the trunk interior, and panels on the shoulders connect up as an engine block. You can flip the chest panel back around 90 degrees to help lock things in place, although the instructions don't show this. Like most RoadBots, some panel-massaging is required and the fit isn't great no matter what you do, but I'm generally impressed. And also, like most RoadBots, his accessories don't really store. The laser cannon chunk is part of the front bumper and the rear window is one of his shields, but that's it. I got some serious stress marks where the rear fenders connect to the bottom doorframe pieces. Easy to get it together, hard to get it apart. Vehicle Mode: 5.5" (14cm) long Supra coupe, the shell is mostly metalflake chartreuse plastic, but the hood and spoiler are gunmetal gray plastic. The windows, front vents and front license plate are painted gloss black. The headlights and taillighs are painted silver. The Supra logo is printed in white on the front license plate and in black on the trunk back. The Toyota logo is printed in black on the hood ornament position. The rear license plate is white with TOYOTA in black. The tailpipe is painted silver, and the turn signal dots on the front sides are red. The hubcaps are chromed plastic, and the tires are black rubberized plastic. Yellow and black tribal tattoo patterns are printed on the hood, and yellow tats on the doors. Unlike most RoadBots, there's actually something to see besides robot bits when you open the hood or trunk. A false top engine block is visible inside the hood, covering up the gun barrels hidden underneath. And the robot abdomen, as mentioned earlier, forms a shallow trunk interior. Opening the doors just gives you a view of the folded up robot arms, though. Undocumented feature: the gun barrels can be flipped out in vehicle mode. They don't interfere with rolling along in this configuration. Overall: Well, the robot mode is nothing special as RoadBots go, but the transformation is pretty good and the vehicle mode goes the extra...well, not mile, but a few extra furlongs. ROADBOT: Lavadog Class: 32 Faction: DM Altmode: Hummer H3 Birthplace: Shreveport, Louisiana, United States Motto: "Don't get cocky, they'll forget you too, in time." Created by TAG as a counter to Rockhound, intended to go the same places and outshine the Diamond Motors RoadBot. Unfortunately, he was too much like Rockhound and found he liked working with his rival more than against him. It was only a matter of time before Lavadog defected. Unfortunately, Lavadog is a lot of show and not so much go, meaning that he often finds himself breaking down while trying to follow his "brother" into some of the harsher terrain that Rockhound favors. Most of his weapons are actually tools that happen to be lethal when used correctly. His plasma generator can create harpoons of coherent flame, or simply crank up the coherence field without any flame at all for what appears to be a crystal sword. He also has a secondary matter-based harpoon that he uses to help him get out of tight spots in rough terrain. His foam rifle is mainly meant for putting out fires and cooling down magma, but he's learned to use it tactically, laying down slippery pools that make opponents scamble for footing. STR 8 INT 6 SPD 5 END 5 RNK 4 COUR 8 FRB 6 SKL 7 Avg 6.125 Robot Mode: 6" (15cm) tall at the head, 7" (18cm) at the roof shell sticking up on his back with molded rocket launchers. A mix of dark red, ochre and dull brown plastic with a decent color balance helped by generous amounts of gold, silver and black paint. The face is silver with blue eyes, black ears and forehead center, silver "cap". Unfortunately, the kibble utterly hamstrings articulation. The front doors stick up off the tops of the hips to sit under the armpits, and cannot be folded out of the way. So say goodbye to useful leg articulation or waist movement. Big shoulderpads get in the way of the kibble backpack to drop him down to practically G1 Hot Rod articulation. In theory, he's got loads of joints, none of them floppy. In practice, his head turns and his elbows bend with double hinges. Everything else has to fight against the kibble. Accessories: A rifle, a lance with attached shield thing, and the usual LED pack with two blades. The hood and rear door can also be used as shields. The rifle incorporates the spare tire as a magazine, and is the only weapon incorporated into vehicle mode. In fact, despite the large empty spaces inside, I couldn't find a way to make any of the other non-kibble items fit inside. The LED block is ochre with silver paint. The two blades are a short barbed harpoon head and a sort of ice sword. The lance is silver-gray plastic and the longest single item. A sort of shield of dull brown plastic clips onto it, and looks like one of those lifeguard floats. The rifle is dull brown plastic with gold paint, and has the red spare tire on top. It looks like a big squirt gun, hence assigning it the firefighting gear ID above. Transformation: Massive partformer-ness. And you have to get the pile of panels in place in the right order for everything to close up. On the third try I finally got it all together properly, but the instructions are almost zero help. Vehicle Mode: A little over 6" (15.5cm) long, easily the biggest of the 1:32 vehicles (significantly longer than the Pajero/Montero). Dark red body shell with lots of black paint for windows, trim and the hood vent. The tires are rubberized plastic, with silver-painted hubs. There's also silver on the front grille and some roof trim. A silver and black H3 logo is printed on each door and on the rear. The Hummer logo is molded into the spare tire. Metallic red paint on the headlights and front turn signals. Oddly, the taillights are silver. The package shows the hood opening, but that had to have been faked somehow, since mine snaps shut as soon as you let go. Yeah, it opens, but it won't stay open for a photo. The front doors and the tail door open, but the rear side doors do not. There's nothing inside worth seeing, in any case. Overall: Disappointing. Too much crap, not enough finesse. Just a Hummer shell around an unremarkable robot skeleton...which I suppose makes it more like the H2 than anything else (the H2 is a standard minivan core with a fakey Hummer shell, essentially). Dave Van Domelen, NOT going to bring the craptacular Morphobot pseudo- RoadBots into this story setting.