Dave's Generations Rant: Deluxe Wave 7 Chromia (TF:P Arcee retool) Arcee (Cybertronian cruiser, scalper bait) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/DeluxeT7 With Combiner Wars already out in some stores, the final wave of the Thrilling 30 is doomed to exist in "sold out in five minutes" bursts on HTS and the shelves of scalpers. Well, Chromia is easily available on HTS, but I missed both of the times Arcee was available. I don't want to buy a case or two-pack and get another Chromia just to get Arcee, so it may be a while before I get my hands on Ms. Scalperbait. (A quick check of Amazon shows everyone and their stepbrother is offering Arcee for $24-25, suggesting that this is where most of the HTS stock went.) http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Prime/Deluxe1a - Prime Arcee mold [UPDATE: Thanks to Ian Welch, who lives near what might be the only Walmart not to sell out of Arcee instantly, I got one without enriching a scalper.] CAPSULES $15-to-scalper-rates price point. Chromia: Original mold was Strongly Recommended. They did a great job turning it into a new character here. Strongly recommended. Arcee: The only significant flaws are hands molded to be incapable of holding weapons non-awkwardly (which I'm told is being fixed) and the end-of-line scarcity. Strongly recommended. RANTS Packaging: Same as previous waves. Chromia includes Nightbeat on the cosells on the bottom flap, while Arcee has Scoop and Windblade...but not Chromia. AUTOBOT: CHROMIA Altmode: Motorcycle Series: 02 Number: 022 Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (2) Previous Name Use: RotF Previous Mold Use: TF:P (heavily modified) Function: Bodyguard Motto: "I protect the Cityspeaker. Not you." CHROMIA is a master of infiltration, sabotage, and the kind of tactical counterstrikes that crush an opponent's morale. Unfazed by any enemy or situation, she can always be counted on to step up when her team's in a tight spot. STR 7 INT 7 SPD 8 END 6 RNK 6 COUR 9 FRB 8 SKL 5 Avg 7 I ignored the bio note and went with the comic for the function and motto. Packaging: Three sock-ties hold the robot in the blister, the blaster pistol is held in just by the blister shape. The photo shows her with two pistols, but one of them is stolen from Arcee, as the toy only comes with one. In fact, mine had a little sticker added to the back saying "Additional weapon not included." (Later stock photos digitally erased the second gun.) The photos also show the clear plastic as smoky, but it's colorless here, and show the kickstand as black, suggesting they might have been working from a prototype that borrowed pieces from an Arcee. Comic: The new cover shows her with the two guns from the incorrect package photos. The dogged march through Dark Cybertron continues, this is #11. Chromia appears in the background of one panel. Note, while this is a retool, it's so extensive that it's almost quicker to list the parts that AREN'T different. So I'll do that, then otherwise review this as if it were a new mold. Same parts: Torso front, hands, outer thighs, feet, upper arms (but a piece was added on the biceps), strut holding the front wheel (but it's on backwards on mine), kickstand. The kneepads are molded about the same, but are part of retooled pieces. The upper arms and thighs have their looks signficantly changed by the addition of more bits (upper arms) or replaced bits (inner thighs). Robot Mode: The extra armor bits and smaller head combine to make the robot mode look beefier, as befits the brutish bodyguard of the comics. While a bit backpack-heavy, it's not as bad as I'd feared. The comic model splits the front wheel in two, but they kept the engineering of Prime Arcee so the front wheel just hangs over the backpack. The head is proper G1/IDW in design, though, and the general color scheme comes pretty close to G1. All in all, a very good job of repurposing a design. She has a sort of armor bustle that needs to be lifted up in order to keep it from restricting leg motion. 5" (13cm) tall at the head, with the backpack rising a bit above that. A mix of bright medium blue, powder blue, white, red, and black, but dominated by the blues. Matte powder blue plastic is used on the upper arm "skeleton", the hands, the collar, the outer thighs, toes, and the front wheel strut. Bright medium blue for the head, torso, biceps armor, forearms, inner thighs, boots, side cowling winglets, armor bustle. Clear colorless plastic is used for the lightpiping, canopy, front wheel core, heels and rear wheel core. The wheel halves are black plastic, as is the pistol. There's a lot of powder blue paint: face, sternum, central abdomen, elbow disks, knee spikes, sides of the boots, details on the armor bustle, wheel hub "whitewalls". Bright blue paint is on the centers of the wheel hubs. The cuffs, "spats," and central part of the helmet are painted gloss white. There's red striping on the abdomen, boot sides, winglets, plus red on the elbow spikes and tip of the armor bustle. There's a tiny bit of black on the spout-like opening on the helmet crest. The Autobot symbol is mostly hidden in this mode. Articulation is identical to TF:P Arcee's. The changes in shell stuff do interfere with leg range of motion as noted earlier. The hands can hold 5mm pegs, and the knee joints have 5mm peg holes built into the outer facings. Based on some of the details, I'd almost call the 36mm long pistol a carbine. A two-handed grip on the gun is possible, but not stable. It stores on one of the boot peg holes. Transformation: Mostly the same as TF:P Arcee. They're rather clever about turning the winglets, canopy and armor bustle into a unified shell, although getting that shell back open for transforming to robot mode is a bit difficult. Vehicle Mode: Essentially a "Tron bike" with sealed canopy and transparent struts. A Cybetronian (well, Caminoan) mode designed purely for getting around, not disguise or for carrying organics around. So no side mirrors or handlebars, nor really much room inside the canopy for a passenger. The wheels sandwich clear cores, I wouldn't mind seeing a redeco with colored clear plastic to take more advantage of this. It looks a lot better in person than the impression I got from photos. 5" (12.5cm) long, with the white bits more suppressed and the red parts more visible. The headlight is painted red, and above it is a red and white printed Autobot symbol. The wheels roll okay, although the left rear piece on mine is a touch sticky. The separated wheel halves do mean that on a really level surface, the kickstand isn't necessary. The side-storage for the gun bothers me a little, since with only one gun there's an asymmetry. Overall: It takes the engineering of a good base figure, and makes an almost entirely new good toy from it. Get it if you ever see it. AUTOBOT: ARCEE Altmode: Cybertronian Cruiser Series: 02 Number: 021 Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (2) Previous Name Use: Energon, Movie1, RotF, TFP Previous Mold Use: None Weapon: Energon Blades, dual pistols Function: Assassin Motto: "You have to ask yourself, 'Is she as crazy as her rep? Is it all an act?' And then ask yourself if that matters...." ARCEE is one of the most dangerous AUTOBOTS, despite her comparatively small size. She believes the DECEPTICONS must be stopped at all costs. That belief, combined with her combat training, makes her a pure warrior, a hunter who mixes speed and sudden action to strike DECEPTICON targets whenever she can. STR 8 INT 6 SPD 8 END 5 RNK 5 COUR 7 FRB 7 SKL 9 Avg 6.875 Packaging: Five sock ties hold the robot into the blister. The arsenal is held in just by the blister shape. Cosells, oddly, are Windblade and Scoop. The instructions don't show how to store the guns on the underside in vehicle mode, but it's not too hard to figure out. Comic: Dark Cybertron Part 12, finishing the set. At least Arcee has some good snark on the first page. Yes, Chromia is #022 and Arcee is #021 but they have issues 11 and 12 respectively, go figure. Robot Mode: This is a mold that, other than the car shell backpack, could have been made to look almost exactly like the G1 animation model for Arcee...but then a combination of incomprehensible paint app changes and sprue economizing got in the way. Some of the black paint apps seem to have been added to provide visual balance to places where black plastic was used in areas that should've been white, but most of the small bright blue apps looked like cases of "Well, we have the color, let's use it a few more places." The hands are deliberately molded to not let the grips of the guns or swords slide down far enough to not look stupid. Reportedly a running change that connects the thumb to the fingers for strength and removes that ridge. I suspect if I just shaved it down myself, the weakening that results would be a problem. [Later note: someone who shaved his down reports no problems.] 5" (12.5cm) tall at the head, the backpack rises a little above that. Predominantly pink, black, and white, with some blue and gray. Vibrant pink plastic is used for the top half of the backpack (car hood), chestplate, shoulders, forearms, kneecaps, and large gun. Black is used for the collar, wheels, inner section of the torso, abdomen/pelvis front, the hip joints, knee joints, and small pistol. Clear aqua plastic is used on the windshield, lightpiping, and swords. The head, lower backpack, upper arms, thighs, lower legs and feet are white plastic. There's white paint on the abdomen (front and back), details on the forearms, the headlight parts of the backpack. It's very thick white paint, at least. There's vibrant pink paint on the belt (but not pelvis below the belt, one of the places it deviates from animation model) and hip pods. The face is painted pale pink, with the mouth line painted with vibrant pink (so, no lipstick effect, really, just enough to make the mouth visible). There's gloss black paint on the toes and in a fingerless glove pattern on the hands. A slightly metallic bright blue paint is used on the abdomen grid bit (that should be red), some squares on the shins, and the headlights on the backpack. The large gun is painted mostly black and medium gray, and there's light metalflake blue (very thin layer of the other blue?) on the fronts of the Leia-buns of the helmet. The head is on a ball joint, the waist does not turn. Ball joint shoulders with upper arm swivels right below them, hinge elbows that bend to about 40-45 degrees acute, no wrist joints. The hips are a bit complicated because of the transformation struts built in, but are effectively universal joints. Swivels are just above the hinge knees, the ankles are hinges that move both directions for good stability. Rather than use 5mm pegs on the thin limbs, they went with rectangular pegs that can be held in 5mm peg holes. As noted above, the hands don't let these pegs pass all the way through, which results in really awkward-looking weapon holding. But the smaller size lets them put peg slots on the forearms (mostly for the blades), hips, atop the rear fenders, and under the headlights. I'm not really sure what the point of the slots under the headlights is, because none of the weapons will fit there in vehicle mode without preventing rolling, nor do they really work well in robot mode. Additionally, there's a hexagonal 3mm peg hole at the bottom of the backpack, for use with things like Tamashii Stage bases and the like. Weapons: Two pistols and two energon blades. The larger pistol is 44mm long with a long grip, small side pegs above the grip, and a 3mm diameter muzzle aperture. There's a handle on top, but the gap is too small to fit the figure's fingers through. The smaller pistol is only 27mm long, solid piece of black plastic with a bit of gray paint on the underside of the barrel, with a main grip and slightly angled rectangular pegs on the sides. This is the gun Chromia borrowed for some of the packaging shots. The energon blades are clear aqua plastic 2.5" (6.5cm) long with main grips and hilt guards. There's smaller pegs along the back sides, inside curves intended to fit against the thighs. There's tiny blaster barrel bits molded into them as well, so they're vehicle mode ranged weapons, not just sideswipe blades. [Update: Reader C.V. Reynolds clued me in to backpack storage for the swords. This takes advantage of the notches that hold the ankles in car mode, and the blunt spines on the back of the blade stick out through the gap between hood and fender.] Transformation: Pretty much a shellformer, with almost her entire vehicle mode forming a backpack in robot mode. The exceptions are her chest (center of hood front) and thighs (rear fenders). Yes, there's a number of sexist jokes in that, and Arcee will cut you if you make any of them. Undocumented Transformation Feature: The small pistol actually plus into the interior of the pelvis so that the robot arms can grab onto its side pegs and be held far more firmly in vehicle mode. The longer pistol fits under the trunk. [Later note: the longer pistol fits better if you shave down the tab that fits through its unusable top handle. It seems to have been designed without accounting for the very thick gray paint on the pistol.] Vehicle Mode: It's a pink sci fi roadster with tiny wheels and a retro-SF antenna-fin sort of thing. There's molded seats for passengers, who are either action figures or this is a massive land whale that is merely shaped like a petite car. 4.75" (12cm) long, but if you go by the size of the molded seats or steering wheel, the scale is something like 1:100. The front end is mostly pink with white in the middle, while the rear is white with pink in the middle. The supercharger hump on the hood is white plastic, and the antenna thing is pink plastic. There's black painted around the white part of the hood, with an Autobot symbol printed at the front. There's a black stripe around the back end of the passenger compartment that merges into a stripe leading to the back. The center part of the back is otherwise painted pink. The top of the seats is white plastic, but the seat parts are painted white on the black plastic of the console section. The small wheels roll pretty well, even with the slight clearance. I found the large pistol doesn't stay very well under the trunk, and it makes clearance worse, so might as well put it on one of the rear fender peg holes. Six total rectangular slots are accessible in this mode, but as noted before the ones under the headlights are pretty useless. The antenna is slightly tapered, so you could slide a 3mm clip onto it if you wanted. Overall: Well, nearly 30 years after the character appeared in the cartoons, we finally get an Arcee toy that comes pretty close to the animation model. (Just, you know, not painted quite right.) The backpack is nice and compact, so the shellformerness isn't obnoxious, leaving the shallow-grip hands as the only real problem I have with the mold. Too bad it didn't get something like regular distribution...if we're lucky it'll get brought back as a wave-filler or something. Dave Van Domelen, notes that Arcee combines with no bot, you'd do well to remember that. Or she'll cut you.