Dave's Bot Shots Rant: Singles Wave 5 B016 Skywarp (jet) B017 Roadbuster (car) B018 Megatron (truck) * B019 Bumblebee (car) * Super Bot 005 Shockwave (tank) * Do not currently own a copy of this toy, review is based on pictures or seeing the toy in the store. Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/BS/Single5 I might get Skywarp if I see it, but I've passed on Megatron and Bumblebee. Bumblebee has a new battle mask face and what seems to be a new bumper. [Update: Found Skywarp at a Family Dollar...sticker price $5, but all toys were 30% off for holiday clearance.] http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/BS/Single1 - Skywarp mold http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/BS/Single3 - Megatron mold So far, I've only seen Roadbuster, Megatron and Shockwave in stores. CAPSULES All at the $4 price point. Skywarp: Yes, it's another seeker. But it's a slight remold, and does finish out the set of original seekers. Roadbuster: It's nice to have all three neo-Wreckers, and it's a decent mold, if suffering the usual lack of paint applications. Mildly recommended. Megatron: Original was mildly recommended, this looks a little better in opaque, but not enough better to rebuy the mold. Bumblebee: Haven't seen yet. Significantly new mold, but it's Yet Another Bumblebee (YABB). Shockwave: It's a nice enough mold, and the dark purple clear plastic does make the lack of paint less obvious. Mildly recommended, which is about as high as I'm likely to go for a Super Bot. RANTS Packaging: Modified now to have the point value printed on the card rather than added via a sticker. Note: for Skywarp and Bumblebee I'm currently relying on pictures from the official site, and will amend if I later see them in the store and decide the pictures were misleading. Megatron is based on seeing it in package. Since the official site doesn't include the chest stats, I got those off BWTF.com for Skywarp and Bumblebee. DECEPTICON: SKYWARP Altmode: Jet Series: 1 Number: B016 Fist: 620 Sword: 830 Blaster: 160 Skywarp likes to use to power of teleportation to sneak up on unsuspecting Bot Shots. Despite having the upper hand, Skywarp flies head first into battle the old fashioned way just to prove how strong he really is. His low blaster stat doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but Bot Shot stats have even less connection to character than regular techspecs. Packaging: Fighting Powerglide. Color Swaps: The main plastic is black, the secondary is gray. Paint Apps: In robot mode, the face and chest are silver, the helmet, fists and boots are purple. The eyes are painted red. In jet mode, the cockpit windows are gold, and there's purple on the leading edge of the wings. Either the helmet paint is a darker shade of purple, or it's a thinner layer, because it's noticeably darker and under poor lighting looks black. Mold changes: The face is new, with an open-moutned snarling expression rather than a smirk. The chest is also different, with a pattern more like the shoulder scoop details from G1 flipped over and put on the pecs. Overall: Just different enough to be tempting, especially if you find it on sale like I did. I'd recommend painting in the mouth to make it stand out more, though. AUTOBOT: ROADBUSTER Altmode: Car Series: 1 Number: B017 Fist: 320 Sword: 605 Blaster: 695 As a member of the elite fighting force known as the Wreckers, Roadbuster is a pro at tearing up the road. No Bot Shot stands a chance at avoiding his battle charge. Roadbuster always lives up to his name! Packaging: Fighting Skywarp. Robot Mode: Main color is dark forest green, secondary is black. Silver paint on the face, arms and thighs, with surprisingly good coverage. The visor is yellowish green. Despite the fact this is definitely meant to be the Dark of the Moon character, the helmet and face are pretty G1-ish (but not based on G1 Roadbuster, it's actually a lot more like G1 Topspin). Has the commonly reused Bumblebee legs and arms. All of the other parts are unique. Vehicle Mode: This is another "track mode" car, with deployed weapons and so forth. However, the usual paucity of paint means none of the weapons is really picked out...there's just silver on the engine block, black on the windows and white on the doors (no logos). Nice molding, though, might be worth doing some paint touchup. On mine, the bumper trigger is a bit sticky, it has to hit a solid barrier (i.e. not another BotShot) to pop open properly. Presumably this is a QC issue rather than a design flaw, though. Overall: This completes the DotM Wreckers trio, and amusingly does so in the same wave that completes the classic Seeker trio. DECEPTICON: MEGATRON Altmode: Cybertruck Series: 1 Number: B018 Fist: 800 Sword: 300 Blaster: 520 Competing against other Bot Shots is what Megatron lives for. By switching into his cybertruck mode, Megatron provides a false sense of hope to any Bot Shot who dares to stare him down. Packaging: Fighting Battlemask Bumblebee. Color Swaps: The clear plastic is replaced by an opaque olive green, the black stays black. Paint Apps: The metallic olive green helmet remainsm and is joined by metallic olive green on the back of the truck. Silver on the chest, red eyes, black fake wheels. Overall: A little better than the Super Bot, since it's not clear, but the DotM altmode is still an oddball look for Megatron. If you see both, get this one or neither. AUTOBOT: BUMBLEBEE Altmode: Car Series: 1 Number: B019 Fist: 610 Sword: 620 Blaster: 390 Sometimes the battles to tough even for Bumblebee. Using his battle mask to deflect attacks, Bumblebee is able to last longer during each match. This gives Bumblebee a distinct advantage over other Bot Shots. Packaging: Fighting truck Megatron. Robot Mode: Despite being Yet Another Bumblebee, it's a fairly new mold, in that it has a new head/chest piece and a new bumper...and there's entirely different characters with fewer unique parts. The face has a battle mask based on the original G1 toy's faceplate. The main plastic color is canary yellow, secondary is dark gray. The faceplate, upper arms and thighs are painted silver, and the visor slit is light blue. Vehicle Mode: Pretty much the same as the previous Bumblebees, but with a new front end bumper piece. It has gloss black on the front bumper and the windows, and a somewhat incongruous bit of silver along the top of the spoiler. Overall: I already have three Bumblebees in this line, and I don't even have all the available Bumblebees not counting this one! So, despite being a fairly new mold, I probably won't get this even if I see it. DECEPTICON: SHOCKWAVE Altmode: Tank Series: 1 Number: Super Bot 005 Fist: 300 Sword: 330 Blaster: 995 When the battle heats up, Shockwave logically taps into his laser core to super charge his magnum engines. This grants Shockwave the power to chase anyone down and challenge them to a fight. It's the logical thing to do. Note, the non-clear version is part of one of the three-packs. Packaging: Fighting...Brawl? What the slag? Robot Mode: While the head is pretty distinctively Shockwavey, it's otherwise a pretty generic tankformer robot. In fact, it shares the arms, legs and back core with Brawl (the back piece is a common deck with different turret pieces glued onto it for the two figures). The main color is clear "grape lollipop from the doctor's office" purple, the secondary is black. The only paint on the toy is metallic gold on the optic. Vehicle Mode: The front end and the turret are unique to this character (so far). The bumper has rollers on it that remind me of the sort of thing some WWI tanks used to lay out temporary roll-up road pieces over barbed wire, although it's probably based on some modern hyper-harrow intended to simply cut barbed wire or brush. Definitely not the same as Brawl's sand sifters. The turret has two short barreled cannons in it, two hatches, and two sets of smoke dispensers at the rear corners. The cannon barrels have air cooling jacket patterns on them (smokestack-like holes along the sides), suggesting something meant for rapidfire. Black paint on the treads would have helped a lot here (the opaque version has silver treads, but black would blend in with the wheels here). The dark shade of purple plastic does, however, make this lack less glaring than on, say, Sentinel Prime or Bumblebee. Overall: About the middle of the road as far as Super Bots go, maybe a little above the midpoint. But it's a low midpoint. Dave Van Domelen, picked up the ground vehicle three-pack with Shockwave on sale, but left the jet three-pack on the shelf.