Dave's Transformers Cyberverse Rant: Quintesson Invasion Quintesson Judge Shockwave (Battle Class without partner) Prowl (Battle Class without partner) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Cyberverse/Quintesson1 https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Cyberverse/Battle1 - Prowl mold https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Cyberverse/Battle2 - Shockwave mold CAPSULE $30 price point. Quintesson Invasion: Prowl was mildly recommended and Shockwave was recommended, although both of those factored in their Spark Armor partners. If you already have both, this is too expensive for what you get. But if you're missing at least one of the two, or wanted spares for kitbashing purposes, I'd say this set is mildly recommended. RANT Packaging: The new season for 2020 is Battle for Cybertron, with a darker trade dress perhaps intended to emphasize the dire situation. Although this is based on only two sets so far, there might be brighter ones later. The dominant color is dark gray with some medium and light gray bands through it. There's a "Cybertronian Villains" logo that this and the Sharkticon set have in common, with Cybertronian in gold and Villains in a gradient of white to purple, with half a Decepticon symbol to the right of it. Along the bottom border is Cybertronian text that comes out to "Cybertroncre crets of cybertr" and makes me suspect it started as something like "Secrets of Cybertron" before getting rearranged by some designer who thought it was just lorem ipsum. The left side bottom has "crets of" which bolsters that idea. There's also Cybertronian script behind the main Decepticon symbol at the upper right corner of the box, but not enough is visible to make sense of. Anyway, this particular box is open-faced so that people can try the Quintesson spinning face gimmick, and has a hang tab. The tab is 2" (5cm) tall and full width, with art of the characters inside plus the Cybertronian Villains logo. The box is 12" (30cm) wide and 3.25" (8cm) deep. The box part is 8" (20cm) tall, and the back panel with the tab is 10" (25cm) tall. The front is mostly open, with the Transformers logo on the right border, the line logo and set name along the bottom, and a tab in the upper left indicating the spinning faces gimmick. The left side is the usual Decepticon trio, but with a small version of the Cybertronian Villains logo. The right side repeats the art of the top tab, but with the characters rearranged. As usual, legalese on the bottom. The back has photos of all the included figures in all relevant modes, plus showing the head crabs used to control Prowl and Shockwave. It shows more paint on the figures than the actual toys have (extra red on the Quintesson tentacles, extra magenta on Shockwave's kneecaps and forearms, silver on Shockwave's antennae, plus tweaking to make the dark gray plastic look silver, and extra silver on Prowl's chest grille). The judge doesn't have an alternate mode, so the head spinny image is repeated. The inside tray is a dimly lit Quintesson lab backdrop. It's not necessary to open the box to remove the toys, but the instructions are still inside. The instructions are in grayscale and gold, mostly for the two Cybertronians, but a little bit to indicate the face spinning, plus showing the head crabs' attachment. The crabs are new pieces, and repurpose the upper torso 5mm sockets of the Battle Class figures. Ties: Three on robot mode Shockwave, who has his gun on his left arm, four on Prowl. Each has one tie crossing the headcrab to keep it on. Three on the Quintesson, around the tentacle base. Prowl is identical to the core Battle Class version, down to the lack of paint apps. Shockwave has the same molding and plastic colors as the core Battle Class version, but is missing some of the paints: silver on the antennae, almost all of the magenta panel lines on the forearms (they just left in the top one on the front and the middle one on back, and there's none on the sides). The stripes that remain are duller. [Later note: his rubbery cable is slightly different on some copies. Mine are identical, but someone reported a cable noticeably more rounded off on one end.] Headcrabs: Two identical head-cover pieces that enslave Cybertronians, made of black plastic. In fact, all the new stuff in this pack is black plastic. They have "pigtails" hanging down in front that act as forelimbs for them to scuttle around looking for victims, with the 5mm connection pegs acting as hind legs, I guess. As helmets, they give the victim a single cyclopean eye and two short hornlike bits on top. 2cm tall and 2.5cm wide, they can attach to the harness connection points of any Battle Class figure except Sky-Byte, whose head is too tall to fit inside. The eye and the tops of the horns are painted red. Prowl can transform with the headcrab still in place, it ends up on the hood of the car. However, Shockwave's transformation does not allow it to remain attached. Quintesson Judge: Five all new faces, although one of them bears more than a passing resemblance to the "Death" face of the G1 Quintessons. Two of them, including sorta-Death, show clear Egyptian motifs. Two more are vaguely like sub-Saharan masks, and one I can't quite place, maybe a little Japanese? Until such time as we get official names, I'm going to call them Death (angry Egyptian), Judgement (more female-looking Egyptian with pursed lips), Mania (crazy sorta sub-Saharan), Doubt (sub-Saharan with a skeptical expression), and Disappointment (she is definitely disappointed in you). There's 20 tentacles, but the lower body is mostly four-fold symmetric rather than five. The top of the head is a dome with three evenly spaced horns, so they're not really committed to the whole five-fold symmetry thing. The faces are at least snapped into place, possibly glued, I was unable to remove them with gentle probing. As noted above, it's all black plastic. 5.5 (14cm) tall, with silver paint on 12 of the tentacle tips. The movable tentacles have no paint. The three horns on top are also painted silver. Death has a silver face and metallic green-gold paint on his headdress, which is like a cross between a pharaonic headdress (sides) and a kabuto helmet (top). His false beard is also green-gold. His jagged teeth, pupils, and a gem on the helmet crest are painted a pale yellow that looks like it should be glow in the dark, but isn't (I can fix that, of course). The whites of the eyes are left black, as is the open mouth. Judgement has a gold headdress that's also vaguely Egyptian, with a light blue kite-shaped gem on the forehead. The eyes are also light blue, while the bridge of the nose and the lips are left black. Mania has a mask of dull copper and metallic light purple with black and yellow Chameleon-ish eyes, a toothy silver grin, a generally jackal-like appearance that reminds me of Achebe from the Black Panther comics. Doubt's helmet actually looks kind of mesoamerican in ways, but the elongated face is something I've mostly seen in sub-Saharan mask art. The helmet and nose are metallic dark green, the fafe is silver, the eyes are yellow with black rings around them. Finally, Disappointment is mostly left black, with red on the eyes, chin, and the center of the spiky helmet. The face is silver, but a black domino mask sort of thing is left around the eyes. [When they showed up in the show, the ones I called Judgement and Disappointment have female voices, the rest are male. And yes, Mania is crazy.] Four of the tentacles have ball joint connections at their roots. As noted, they are unpainted. The other two tentacles with no paint have hidden tips so they wouldn't get paint anyway. (I might drybrush some gunmetal on all the tentacles, though.) Pressing down on the dome top makes the ring of faces spin 1/5 of the way around. Counter-clockwise when viewed from above, or vector up in three-dimensional notation. The screw hole in the top of the dome is slightly larger than 5mm, so no mounting a headcrab there. You can hang them on the ends of the articulated tentacles, though. Overall, as Quintesson toys go, it's decent for what amounts to a One Step class figure. If sold separately for $10-15, I'd say to definitely get one. But it's not enough draw to rebuy the other two figures. [Later note: the Target listing has the heads as Ego, Chaos, Cruelty, Death, and Judgement. Death is as I pegged it. Chaos is probably what I called Mania, I might have Judgement right, and my Disappointment seems in line with Cruelty. I guess that leaves my Doubt as Ego.] Set Overall: If you didn't get both Prowl and Shockwave, it's worth getting this set for the Quintesson and one partner-less Battle Class figure. But if you, like me, already have both, it's a bit of a waste. Dave Van Domelen, impulse-bought One-Step Fusion Flame Hot Rod today to compare to the redeco in the Sharkticon set.