Dave's Generations Rant: Wave 8 Warpath (tank) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/Deluxe8 This "wave" is really reships of waves 6 and 7 with Warpath added in. Reportedly there will be a new shipment in the Fall with some of the tail end Generations getting more time in stores, but I lucked into a couple cases of this wave that made it to Target locally. CAPSULE Warpath: Very good in both modes, interesting transformation, great design in general. Strongly recommended. $11.89 at Target. RANT Packaging: Same as previous waves. AUTOBOT: WARPATH Altmode: Tank Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (3) Previous Name Use: G1, Movie1, Universe2 Previous Mold Use: None Gimmick: Launching missile Function: Warrior Motto: "BANG! ZOOM! To the dark side ot the MOON!" Wherever the fight is, that's where WARPATH wants to be. His super heavy armor and powerful weapons mean he doesn't have to worry about things like orders or tactics. He just heads straight for wherever the fighting is heaviest, pouring fire into the enemy, and hoping there's someone left standing to give him a good fight when he gets there. STR 6 INT 6 SPD 5 END 8 RNK 3 COUR 7 FRB 7 SKL 5 Avg 5.875 Pretty crappy stats, given his bio note. And as a tank, he's a real Leeroy Jenkins. At least he has fried energon. Packaging: One string holds the tank into the blister, the missile is just held in by the blister shape. Thundercracker is the cosell. The package photo of tank mode is mirror flipped. Vehicle Mode: While G1 Warpath was more or less based on a real tank, this one is a chimerical blend of several types of tanks, real and fictional, used by various recent tank-mode Transformers. It has the four tread pod style seen numerous times since Hardhead, although it's not in the extreme "H-tank" format. There's a gap between the front treads, but only about half an inch (1.5cm) deep, and the rear deck lines up with the back of the treads. The turret bears a resemblance to an M1 Abrams's, but with movie Brawl style weapon pods stuck to the sides (just the pods, not the secondary cannons). In fact, the left pod is pretty much the same as Brawl's, but the right pod is molded more like a rocket box and contains the mechanism for launching the missile. As befits a weapons platform, he's well equipped for the C-clip system in addition to his three dedicated weapons (main turret gun, missile launcher, rocket pod). Each tread pod has a C-clip rod recessed into its top. The launchable missile is 3mm in diameter, so you can clip more stuff onto it. And the opening at the muzzle of the cannon is 3mm in diameter, so you could plug the barrel with a weapon borrowed from a Cyberverse figure (although few of them have pegs in a good place...Hatchet's drone pod with the peg in back would work, though). The main body is 4" (10cm) long and 3" (8cm) wide, with the turret set back even with the rear tread pods. When pointing forward, the turret back is almost flush with the rear of the main body, and the entire length with cannon extended is 4.25" (10.5cm) long. If you load the missile, its tail sticks out the back by about an inch (2cm). The dominant color is Warpath's classic darkish red, but with some light gray and gunmetal parts, plus a few details in black and silver. Being a fantasy tank it's hard to talk about scale but a 15mm figure (about 1:130 scale) would look about right, or maybe even a 25mm figure (1:80). Being 1:80 scale would make the hull the same length as a M1 Abrams, although it feels a little small given the general look of the tank mode. The side pods on the turret and their struts are gunmetal plastic. The armor of the driver's compartment and some robot bits visible on either side of the turret are light gray plastic. Everything else, including the missile, is a dark red (a little darker than hexcode 990000) plastic. There's silver paint on the treads, the C-clip ports on the front tread pods and some bits on the sides between the tread pods that are really for robot mode. There's a black trapezoid at the front top of the turret, black Autobot symbols on the sides of the rear tread fenders, and ID numbers in black on the front fenders. The front right has K4-90W (KA-POW) and the front left has ZOW-333 (ZOW-EEE). Maybe Z0W, not enough of a font sample to tell. The turret turns all the way around, the cannon can elevate to about 30 degrees. The side pods on the turret are on hinged struts (one joint only at the end of each strut, no "shoulders"). Instructions and package photos show the pods in the middle of their range of motion for this mode, and folded all the way up for robot mode. I prefer them all the way down in this mode, hugging the turret sides rather than sticking up like Brawl's. The main hatch can flip up, although that just reveals the robot face and not somewhere you could place a little figure. The tank rolls along on little caster wheels under each tread, and vehicle mode is very stable. Transformation: The front tread pods become the feet, with the legs hidden under the middle of the tank. The rear pods become the arms. The center folds around to make the torso (dominated by the turret) and pushing the main cannon barrel straight in automorphs the head up out of the hatch. The limbs transform with some pretty clever panel-shifting, and the entire tread section of each front pod becomes the bottom of a foot, enhancing the G1-ness of the robot mode. Going back to vehicle mode is pretty smooth as well, the only tiny caution area is that you need to peg the legs together before snapping the driver's compartment armor onto them. Note, while you have to push the cannon in so that you can pop the head up (unless you have very strong and long nails), you can always pull it back out if you want to give him a bigger chest gun. It doesnt automorph the other direction, you have to pull the barrel out to make room and then manually shove the head back inside. Robot Mode: One of the best G1 upgrades they've done, incorporating clear G1 elements like the tread feet and turret chest while also giving us modern articulation and detailing. There's plenty of well thought out details added on, including armored ammo feeds built into the forearms that are made to look like they go into whatever gun he holds. The shape of the forearms does make it hard for the 5mm peg-holes of the hands to work with some guns...unless you open up the forearm panels to make room. In terms of other weapons, there's some weapon ports molded into the shoulders, the turret pods fold up to flank the head, and the rear tread pod C-clip rods end up on top of the forearms. The front ones are on the shins and not quite as useful. The hands can hold 5mm pegs, as mentioned. 5.25" (13.5cm) tall, with more light gray and gunmetal added to the mix. Oddly, the lightpiping is opaque black plastic, not just a dark smoky clear (I used a laser to test). The back of the neck, upper arms, fists and thighs are made of gunmetal plastic. Most of the lower torso (except the front panel of the abdomen) as well as the pelvis front are light gray plastic. Light gray is also used the roots of the shoulders. Everything else, including the butt and the elbow joints, is dark red plastic. There;s silver paint on the cheeks, a strip between chest and abdomen, the shoulder fronts and all the places it was in tank mode. There's gold bits on the shoulders and the belt, and black on the kneecaps (plus the turret bit that now looks like a wide tie). With no paint on the eyes, they end up black...but it more or less works here. The head swivels, the waist does not turn. The turret's swivel is blocked by the shoulder roots. The shoulders are universal joints, there's swivels just above the hinge elbows (elbows bend about 90 degrees). The wrists can fold upwards on transformation hinges. The hips are very stiff ball joints, there's mid-thigh swivels and hinge knees. The ankles are hinged with a fairly small range of motion, and the feet are supposed to stay pegged in place anyway...it's just not a good hold on the left foot of mine. With only one wheel on each foot, he can't really skate along, sadly. And if you leave the cannon retracted, it can't swing up. Overall: The only problem I have with my copy is an ankle that doesn't like to lock down, and that's purely a QC roulette issue rather than a design flaw. Given that I spent the night restoring my main computer after screwing up the drivers and causing a kernel panic, I was glad to have this toy to keep me occupied while my computer slooooowly restored from backups. Bang, zowie! Dave Van Domelen, really needs to get to moving prep, so might not get any more reviews done before he's settled into place in Kearney.