Dave's Transformers Generations Rant: 30th Anniversary Voyager Wave 1 Blitzwing Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/VBlitzwing While I track this as "wave 3" on my sightings page, Blitzwing and his casemate Autobot Springer are actually part of a new series, the 30th Anniversary (2014) wave. They have Series 02 on the packaging, and new trade dress. They're definitely not "deep history" versions like War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron. Oh, and while this is Series 02 #002 and I usually go in assortment order, I'm going in "save the best for last" order this time, at least based on others' reactions to the two toys in this wave. CAPSULE: $20-25 price point. Blitzwing: A pretty good basic design with one now-infamous flaw in the shoulders. It's fixable with minimal tools and skills, but it shouldn't have to be fixed. Recommended if you're willing to do the modification, but don't just give it to a kid (or an adult who can't be trusted with superglue). RANT: Packaging: It's the same shape as the FoC Voyager boxes, and has several elements in common, especially the general look of the top, left, back and the upper left of the front. "Fall of Cybertron" is replaced by a new 30th Anniversary logo (similar to the 25th Anniversary logo on earlier Generations toys), and the bottom, right side and bottom of the front are now mostly white with some gray splatter pattern. There's a few other minor changes in the size or placement of the elements, but there's enough in common that a mixed assortment of waves on the shelf won't look too odd. The general layout of the back and style of techspec are retained. The cosell on the bottom is for the other member of the wave. Modifications: There's enough aftermarket modification being done on this mold that it merits own section at the front. Most of it comes down to problems with the shoulders fitting properly in place, there's too much of a gap and that results in things not holding well. Most people are going with a fairly involved solution which requires unscrewing the torso and then filing down just the right amount of material on the inside so that the torso closes to the proper size. It seems to work pretty well, but you need to remove the right amount of material and so so very evenly. http://www.allspark.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=93348 leads off with a pretty good example of this fix, although it doesn't have pics. Other solutions seek to just fill the gap without modifying the torso any more than necessary. I found one with a YouTube tutorial that uses plastic card and poster putty to create a shim (currently available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cV00MNG7ls but the link could have decayed if you're reading this years after the fact). Another version of this style of fix can be found on the AllSpark thread above. http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-customs/889560-just-another-non-invasive-generations-blitzwing-shoulder-fix.html (sorry for the crawling horror from the depths of namespace) This one takes a similar tack, but applies the shim to the shoulder part rather than the torso. Note that the simpler fixes are focused on the robot mode, and may leave some problems with vehicle modes. The torso-sanding fix, while more radical, supposedly fixes all alignment problems in all modes. I did not have problems with alignment in the altmodes, though, and my own version of the simple fix (http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/blitzfix.JPG) was all that was required to get mine to work as intended. In addition to the now-infamous shoulder problems, some Blitzwings have problems with the spinning face gimmick, which is susceptible to paint lock. That may require some cutting or dremeling. Only one of the three pieces that make up the helmet shell can be unscrewed and easily removed, though (the other side appears to be riveted), so you might be better off with a plastic knife or something (or really strong fingernails) to get it moving. Pushing down, rather than up, worked better for me in getting it moving, but once I broke up the resistance it was okay in either direction. DECEPTICON: BLITZWING Series: 02 Number: 002 Altmodes: Jet, Tank Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (2) Previous Name Use: G1, TF:A Previous Mold Use: None Function: Triple Changer Motto: "If at first you don't succeed, try something else." Within his heavily armored and highly destructive body, BLITZWING has the ice-cold mind of a master strategist - sometimes. At other times, he is a boiling cauldron of rage, waiting for any excuse to unleash his firepower on the nearest target. And now and again he is a chaotic whirlwind of bizarre behavior and intermittent bursts of plasma fire. His unpredictability makes him a poor soldier, but his raw firepower and unstable mind make him a useful tool for a commander as capable as MEGATRON. STR 9 INT 6 SPD 9 END 8 RNK 3 COUR 6 FRB 8 SKL 4 Avg 6.625 Yep, while this is G1-inspired in appearance, it's clearly taking most of its cues from the TF:A version of the character. Packaging: Mostly in proper robot mode, but with the cannon folded down the back and sticking out between the legs in a somewhat suggestive manner. Having it folded up would require the box be significantly taller. The face is in red-goggled "boiling cauldron" position, which also happens to be closest to the G1 design. Four strings hold the robot into the tray, with a rubber band securing a shell over the cockpit-chest to protect it from dings during shipping. Well, it's more accurate to say that the entire torso is held together with a mummy wrapping of clear rubber bands. One for the chest, one for each shoulder. The gun and sword get one string each on either side of the robot, and the missile is tied into place behind the robot with its own string. And yes, as soon as the rubber bands are removed, the defects in the shoulders become immediately apparent. Robot Mode: A somewhat disproportionate humanoid, with shins about an inch longer than they really should be. Combined with the yellow helmet, I suppose this makes him a leggy blonde. The feet are paddle-like, since they close up to form the thrust vectoring for jet mode. In proper configuration, the cannon sticks up behind the head like a samurai banner. Generally speaking, it does a good job of looking like the G1 character, despite minor issues. And it brings in the TF:A Blitzwing with the swappable faces (classic, monocle, crazy), although they rotate up and down on a horizontal axis rather than side to side like on the TF:A version. 7.25" (18.5cm) tall at the head, about 9" (23cm) at the top of the cannon. It's a mix of light tan, light gray, dark gray and Decepticon Purple, with some splashes of yellow and red. Getting a read on the plastic colors is tricky, because several parts appear to have been dipped in paint, like the upper part of each knee joint. Decepticon Purple plastic is used on the majority of the torso, the fists, the feet, the outer sides of the boots, the cannon struts on the back, the sword, the missile, the tail fins and the wings. The turret base backpack piece, the tabs across the top of the torso and the shoulder root pieces that cause all the problems are a slightly softer variety of purple plastic, which is also slightly lighter in hue. The upper parts of the knee joints and the inner shoulders might be purple plastic as well, they have the sheen of the gray paint rather than the look of the gray plastic used. Very dark gray (almost black) plastic is used on the tank treads on the shins and the pistol (which looks sort of like the G1 gun, but also kinda like Optimus Prime's rifle). Silvery light gray plastic is found on the upper arms, elbows, ankles, hip joints, neck base, and the hinge for the nosecone. The helmet is probably tan plastic under a thick layer of yellow paint. The shoulderpads, forearms, thighs, pelvis back and cannon barrel are light tan plastic. The nosecone and faces are rubbery light gray plastic, the cockpit window on the chest is clear yellow. The instep sides of the boots (tank tread fenders) are purple plastic dipped in tan paint. The match between tank paint and tan plastic is so-so, with the paint being lighter and glossier, but in robot mode it's not too jarring. There's silver and neon red paint details on the chest, purple paint (poor match) on the nosecone and forearms, yellow paint on the helmet (I initially thought the center part was actually yellow plastic, but then some of the paint came off from nosecone rubbing), light gray paint on the thighs. There's also neon red on the leading edges of the wings. The interior of the cockpit is painted light tan, and you can open up the cockpit to get a better view inside. The butt is also painted tan, to more or less match the tan pieces on the sides of the pelvis. There's a stripe of purple paint on the cockpit window itself. A silver and purple Decepticon symbol is printed just below the cockpit, in the belt-buckle position. The classic face has red goggles, crazy face is painted black with red eyes and jagged mouth, the monocle face has a black border, pale lavender face, red eye and monocle. The monocle face is the hardest to get to on mine, the other two swap back and forth pretty easily but monocle is hard from either direction. Each face is a separate piece of rubbery plastic, so the problems happen when one gets caught up on a detail inside the helmet, something that might not be an issue of the three heads were cast as a single piece. The head turns, the waist does not. Shoulders are universal joints, but tend to fall apart (see below). There's upper arm swivels, hinge elbows, swivel wrists. Rather than folding away for altmodes, the fists are covered by shells that fold over them. Hips are universal joints, there's swivels just above the hinge knees, and the ankles are ball joints with separate hinge joints for the toes and heels. Generally good articulation, although as mentioned above the shins are a lot longer than the thighs, so some poses can look a little weird. However, the long and well-articulated feet mean that it can stand stably in a pretty wide variety of stances, even if the legs look weird in them. The tank cannon fires by pushing the barrel back along its length, but the spring is so weak on mine that when the barrel is pointed up the missile can't reliably get out when fired. So, really not something for robot mode, even if you could point it forward (which you can't). The rifle is 2.25" (6cm) long, with a 5mm peg handle and two 5mm pegs on either side just ahead of the handle. The way the forearm is constructed makes it difficult to hold the gun pointed exactly along the arm, it has to bend inward a little. The sword is a single piece of purple plastic 3.5" (9cm) long with the blade painted lavender. It has a 5mm peg hilt (a little too big, I had to force it to get into either hand) and the crosspiece has a peg on one side (for vehicle mode storage) and a 5mm hole on the other. The hands can hold 5mm pegs, but there's no other pegs or peg holes accessible in this mode. Well, you can kinda get at ones on the backs of the shoulders if you flip out the tail fin bits, but they're not particularly useful. In this mode, the shoulder problem is mainly a case of tabs that slide into slots but don't actually snap or otherwise secure strongly. The various modifications all address this in different ways, but focus on shoving the tab and slot together more firmly so that they don't slide apart under the slightest provocation. Cheets's mod makes the tab longer, while other shoulder-only fixes push the tab forward, and the torso-sanding one simply narrows the space available and forces the tab into a tighter fit. As seen above, I went for a simple shoulder-push. Transformation to Tank: Push the head down turtle-style and fold the nosecone over it (if you can...it's a PITA). The legs pull out to the sides and the shin-treads swing out so you can unfold the rest of the tread and lock it into place on the thigh. You need to make sure the tread pieces slide out all the way so that the wings can be hidden entirely inside the tread housing. Tan pieces on the sides of the pelvis fold out to link up with the thighs and form a more solid front end, but the pegging is VERY tricky, especially since it has to stay aligned at the same time as you peg the treads into the sides of the torso (which requires hooking a tab under a bit, pushing it up, and then getting another tab into a different slot). Seriously, getting the treads properly tabbed is a royal pain, but once you get it right the result is pretty solid. When going directly from jet to tank, make sure the nose wheel is folded back out of the way before you start, as it's not possible to fold it forward far enough to avoid blocking the turret, and it can't easily be folded back once you have the turret made. Tank Mode: Well, to get the biggest flaws out of the way first, the turret turns from its front rather than center (so turning it more than a little bit looks wrong), and the rear end is a bunch of jet tail kibble that fails to look like a tank body. The tan-painted fenders do look a lot more out of place here, as they're right next to more of the tan plastic. While there's probably some identifiable tank elements here and there, I'm not really going to go out on a limb and try to tie this to a specific real world tank. It has the general feel of things like the M1 Ambrams, though. The chassis is 5.25" (13cm) long and 3.5" (9cm) wide, while the turret with cannon is 5.5" (14cm) long. Tan dominates this mode, with much of the purple hidden inside the chassis. The purple patterns (paint and plastic) on the turret don't really evoke camo, but it's a nice dynamic balance in any case. Interestingly, the tiny wheels inside the treads aren't all the same color: the front pair are purple, the rear pair match the treads. The turret can turn all the way around, but if you go more than about 30 degrees it starts to look odd due to the placement of the swivel, and you also start to uncover all the jet bits the turret is normally on top of. The barrel elevates one click (about 15 degrees) pretty easily and without looking like it has come unattached. The toy rolls along about as well as any fake-treads tank can be expected to. There's 5mm peg holes on the rear sides of the turret, and one atop the barrel root so you can put the pistol in place there as an anti-personnel gun. In this mode, the shoulder issue really doesn't seem to BE an issue. There's a tab that needs to be forced up and in, then another tiny tab on the side of the robot chest goes into a tiny slot in the tread, but everything is aligned just fine for that. It's frustrating trying to get them to lock, but once they're in place it's pretty solid. I imagine the torso-sanding trick makes it easier to just brace the tread against the entire side of the chest rather than the tiny tab. Transformation to Jet: From tank mode, it's fairly straightforward. Pop down those pelvis flaps in the front and flip the jet nose up and around to the front. Unhook the legs, rotate the shins 90 degrees and stow the treads, pull out the wings and re-lock into the same grooves in the torso (even using the same annoying slot, but a new tab) while collapsing the hips back together. The cannon folds down to hide on the underside, while the turret splits apart into boosters that tab down pretty securely on top. Then fiddle with the feet until they look more or less like thrusters and tailfins. The cannon just sticks out the back along the centerline, although you can swing it around for ground attack role, I suppose. From robot mode there's a few differences, but it's not really any more complicated. Getting the nosecone solidly in place is the same problem as tank mode, but now that the nosecone will be visible rather than hidden under the turret, it's a little more important to get right. I tried dremeling out some material, but it didn't really help...the spring that pushes the head back out just takes up the slack. So it really comes down to the pegging not working well for rubbery plastic. Either way, don't forget to swing out the wing root extensions that give the wings a little more surface area. Jet Mode: The basis seems to be your F-15/MiG-29 sort of air superiority jet, but with wings that are more like those from a SEPECAT fighter. But because the arms have to go somewhere, it gets Jetfire/Super Valkyrie boosters on top, with the vertical tail parts angled out at about 45 degrees. While the instructions have you leaving the feet snapped shut, you should open them up a bit to reveal the thruster details on the inside. 7.75" (19.5cm) long if you ignore the cannon poking out the back, 8.25" (21cm) if you don't, with a wingspan of 6.25" (16cm). The purple comes out to play in this mode, dominating the overall looks, with tan being relegated to the air intakes and the boosters. The front of the nosecone is unpainted to show the light gray plastic, and the red leading edges of the wings are prominent now. The thrusters can be vectored, the tail fins can be adjusted, the nose wheel can be swung out (although if you don't have strong nails you might need a tool to get it started) and the cockpit can open partway (it's blocked by the nosecone). The rear wheels are merely molded into the tank fenders. The turret-side peg holes are still there, although the angled fins get in the way. There's peg holes on the underside of each wing, and one on top between the boosters. The cannon-root peg hole is now on the underside. I didn't find any real problems with the shoulder area here, although it took some excessive force to cram the robot legs into the shoulder slots and get them to stick. There's some stress issues keeping the shoulders pegged solidly onto the legs, but that may be more a case of failing to align things just right during transformation. Overall: The shoulders are a major failure on this toy. If you're not prepared to do some modification work, you'll have a very floppy robot mode, and I don't really recommend just giving this to a kid. The nosecone is perhaps a more serious problem even if you ARE willing to do modification, since it's less fixable. It's a pity they bobbled the shoulder design, though, because otherwise it's a pretty good toy. If you're willing to put in some shims (strips of an expired credit card are about the right thickness), it's definitely worth getting. Dave Van Domelen, on to Springer who is reportedly a whole lot better.