Dave's Revenge of the Fallen Rant: Scouts Wave 5 Divebomb (Ransack redeco) Skystalker (Stealth Jet) Scattorshot (Antiaircraft Truck) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/Scout5 This wave initially shipped half and half with wave 4 toys. Some places didn't even get Sonar/Brakedown/Wide Load separately, but skipped right to the combined shipments. http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/Scout1 - Ransack mold CAPSULES Divebomb: Original mold was recommended (dropped down due to poor quality control), and this is a Red Baron redeco. I defintely like the looks better, and I got lucky and got a copy that holds together quite well, but I've heard too many tales of ones that fall apart worse than my Ransack to give it more than a Recommended. $7.44 at Walmart. Skystalker: Cool vehicle mode, interesting transformation, good robot mode...would be strongly recommended if not for the spring-loaded feet. At least they don't suck as badly as other spring-feet, so it only knocks the toy down to recommended. $7.44 at Walmart. Scattorshot: As homages/updates go, it could have been a bit more faithful to the Cybertron character, it's almost as if the designers were hedging their bets and allowing for another character or two to work if the lawyers wanted ot protect a different name. But it's a good vehicle mode, good transformation and good robot mode...solid all around, if not astounding in any way. Recommended. $7.44 at Walmart. RANTS Packaging: Same as wave 4, still no NEST indications. DECEPTICON: DIVEBOMB Altmode: Biplane (Albatross D.III) Licensor: None Previous Name Use: G1, Energon, Classics, Movie1 Previous Mold Use: RotF Function: Distraction Motto: "Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty or more...." Entranced with the romance and daring of ancient DECEPTICONS living on Earth, DIVEBOMB rescanned his vehicle mode to mimic one of the most famous of those old warriors. Unfortunately, paired with SKYSTALKER to fight an AUTOBOT antiaircraft specialist, he's quickly learning the limitations of his new form. STR 6 INT 7 SPD 8 END 6 RNK 2 COUR 6 FRB 8 SKL 7 Avg 6.25 The movie Divebomb was one of the Walmart exclusive redecos, Cybertron Thundercracker done up in a scheme mildly evocative of G2 Hooligan. And yes, these are the same techspec numbers as that Divebomb. The motto I have him is a line from "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron" by The Royal Guardsmen. Packaging: Five twist-ties, and the one around the waist cleverly hooks up and has a rubber band connected from it to the head to keep the head from flopping around. The hands are also secured by rubber bands. I've heard some real horror stories about this mold popping apart worse now than as Ransack, but I was able to free it from the package without anything falling off (not something I could say about Ransack). The figure has the main landing gears raised as far as possible in robot mode in the package, but the photo on the back and the instructions show the wheels down as hip pods. Speaking of instructions, he's got one of the biggest instruction sheets of any Scout. Color Swaps: The tan and maroon plastic becomes bright red, as does the gunmetal plastic. The gray plastic on the propeller, legs and abdomen becomes a sort of slightly brownish pale gunmetal plastic, while the rest of the gray (arms, struts) is black. Paint Apps: The chest vents and the top of the head are painted to match the pale metallic plastic, while the face is silver and the eyes are gold. The pelvis is also painted pale metallic, but it's harder to tell at first because it's merely a little shinier than the plastic around it. In vehicle mode, pretty much just the white stripes and black Decepticon symbols. White on the nosecone, squares on the tops of the wings, vertical stripes on the sides of the fuselage just behind the cockpit, and white trailing edges on the tail surfaces. Rather than iron crosses, there's black Decepticon symbols on the wing tops and inside the fuselage stripes. However, there's one other color of paint, the rear landing skid and the engine are painted to match the pale metallic plastic. Mold Changes: None that I noticed. Things fit together a lot better here than on my Ransack, I didn't need to do any modifications (Ransack needed a lot of joint-tightening). The only problem, really, is that the fuselage doesn't join together as well as I'd like in plane mode. Other Notes: I should get a spare Ransack, tweak the colors and add a Snoopy pilot figure. Also, while the Fokker triplane is most iconically associated with the Red Baron, he flew a lot of planes, including the one this most resembles. If you want to further distinguish Divebomb from Ransack, you can put the wings up on the backpack to look like the flight packs the Knightmares use in Code Geass. :) Overall: I've seen too many reports of bad quality to discount them simply because I got a good copy, but I *did* get a good copy, so they're out there. DECEPTICON: SKYSTALKER Altmode: Stealth Fighter Licensor: None Previous Name Use: G1 Previous Mold Use: None Gimmick: Connects to Mindwipe Function: Abduction Specialist Motto: "Come fly with me...." SKYSTALKER is more than happy to let DIVEBOMB, in his new form, take fire from SCATTORSHOT. While his partner is busy getting his wings singed, SKYSTALKER is swooping in from behind in stealth mode, preparing to snatch the hapless AUTOBOT and carry him off into the sky. STR 7 INT 5 SPD 9 END 6 RNK 7 COUR 4 FRB 5 SKL 9 Avg 6.5 Skystalker's namesake was actually a car, a Micromaster that came with a spaceship base/vehicle. Packaging: 4 twist-ties hold it into the blister, and rubber hands hold the hook weapons awkwardly against the forearms. As soon as it comes out of the blister, the feet snap closed. Vehicle Mode: This is another one of those "sort of an F-303" (Stargate TV series) vehicles like the combiner Iron Man Transformer, but this one is crossed with a B-2 Spirit near the back, lacking a tail. Instead of a regular cockpit, the robot's face pokes out through the gap where one would be, making this look more like it's supposed to be a remote drone vehicle of some sort (the RQ-170 Sentinel may have a similar front end, but totally different wing and engine profile). Interestingly, there's hoverfans on the underside of the wings, but no ducts on the tops. There's a little bit of robot kibble visible from the top, but as normal for a smaller jet there's loads of kibble on the underside. There's numerous "stealth angle" moldings on the wings and fuselage. The wingspan is 6.25" (16cm), but the total length is 3.75" (9.5cm). From above it's almost entirely extremely dark gray with light gray accents and some bits of gunmetal and a little of the lighter gray plastic that's mostly seen in robot mode. Nearly black matte charcoal plastic makes up the wing and fuselage top, although there's a few little bits of medium gray plastic at mid-fuselage from some robot arm bits. The nosewheel strut is medium gray, with the wheel itself being gloss black plastic. If you flip it over, there's loads of medium gray for robot bits, and some more gloss black on the underside of the jet engines. There are no rear wheels, instead there's a peg under the back of each engine. These pegs drag along, but are also made to attach to Mindwipe. The gloss black is also used on the robot head that peeks out. The intakes and exhausts of the jet engines are painted gunmetal, and there's a single six-sided lozenge shape panel on the top middle. Very light gray paint (or maybe white that isn't coating fully) is used for "808" on either side of the rear fuselage (possibly a reference to the F-303) and for wing roundels that are the Decepticon symbol with symbolic wings. The single robot eye is painted red. There's also reddish purple on the underside but that's for robot mode. The instructions incorrectly show the nosewheel pointed straight down, rather than pulled as far forward as it'll go. Of course, you can stow the nosewheel and just fold down the robot feet without moving the legs at all, and it's like a weird robot birdie. I'll talk about his combination with Mindwipe in my review of Mindwipe. Note, this is an undocumented feature, it's not in either set of instructions. However, a Hasbro rep mantioned it at BotCon 2009, so it's been open knowledge among fans. Stability is okay, but there's so many panel connections (relative to the size, of course) that it's easy to dislodge something. Battle Mode: There's an official "gerwalk" mode which is the airplane mode with the legs deployed so it can stand or grab targets. The engines unfold into legs, which means that he has to rely on those hoverfans to fly since the thrusters would point mostly upward from his "reverse knees". It'd be more impressive if the foot-claws could actually grab anything more substantial than a piece of paper...the springs are strong enough to be annoying, but that's about it. There's just enough of a projection in there for it to hold a toothpick, but not an arm or wing. Amusingly, you can do a sort of complementary mode by starting in robot mode and then folding the legs up into jet engines, resulting in a sort of jet-taur/Zakutank-hover thing. Transformation: Well, the first step is dropping the legs down which gives you Battle Mode. The wings unpeg from their remaining roots and the arms fold forward from their position as the rear fuselage. You have to fold down the nose end a bit before the arms will unlock, though. Really, other than remembering the nose bit, going to robot mode is pretty easily. Going back to vehicle mode, though, is rather more tricky. It didn't actually get frustrating, even without instructions, but it's pretty involved for a Scout. One potential pitfall is that the weapons are integrated to the vehicle form rather than simply hidden away. So if you lose an axe (say, because the springs in the feet make the toy fall off a table and the axe flies away into a corner somewhere) the vehicle mode won't look right. Also, one oddity, the axes swap sides...the one that goes in the right hand stores in the wing attached to the left arm. Robot Mode: Vaugely batlike in appearance, with a Drone Head. Actually, kinda B.A.T.-like too, especially the way the head looks kinda like that of a Ninja B.A.T. but with just one eye. Black and gray with reddish purple bits and a few splashes of gunmetal, plus the one red eye. The hooked axes also make me think of some of the black Bionicle villain figures. All in all, a figure that really needs to be displayed hanging from a thread rather than standing on a shelf. The canonical wing arrangement has them more or less as a standard "wing cape" deal, although they can be folded in a lot of ways thanks to the jointing. It's not totally flexible, they don't work very well as shields, but they can be banners, shoulderpads, fold up in a Jetfire-like way on the back, etc. I spent a good twenty minutes while watching TV just messing around with ways to pose the wings. In a stance that lets him not fall over backwards, he's only about 3.5" (9cm) tall, but his legs do need to be bent in reverse quite a bit to let him stand. His ankles don't bend forward enough to let him stand with straight legs, another reason for displaying hanging. If you push the toes forward as far as they'll go you get more of a high-heeled look that can stand a bit taller, at 4.25" (10.5 cm). The head, torso core and pelvis are made of gloss black plastic. Airplane black pieces are armor on the forearms and chest, plus the engines are the shins. The arms, collar area, thighs and feet are light gray plastic. The main new paint color in this mode is a glossy red-violet that looks mostly red under room lighting but more purple under a stronger light or UV. (Oddly, the black plastic glows a little under UV). This is used on the inner chest and on the pelvis, looking more like they were dipped into the paint rather than having it sprayed on. The bottom and sides of the head, including the antennae, are also this red-purple. The lone eye is bright red and glows strongly under UV. There's additional gunmetal on the centerline of the pelvis and on the power cables of the axes (for you Gundam fans, think Heat Hawk axes). Thanks to the springs in the feet, you pretty much have to bend the knees backwards a bit or the figure will flip onto its back. The feet are pinned together, though, so modification is more difficult. The simplest option is to try to disengage the spring entirely and then work some glue into the joints to stiffen them up. If you go for the high heel option, though, it's not TOO bad. Springs aside, articulation is pretty good, even considering that the wings can get in the way. The head is on a ball joint at the top of a hinged neck stalk. The shoulders are ball joints at the ends of hinged "shrugging" joints (for transformation), and a complicated ball and hinge assembly connects the wings to the back of the shoulders (not to the torso). Ball joint elbows and hips, but no waist joint. The knees are hinges of a weird sort, the entire lower leg is outside of the thigh piece, rather than the hinge being inside the middle of the boot. The ankles are hinged at the root, but as mentioned earlier they don't really go far enough to do much good. If you go with a hanging/flying pose, there's a LOT of range of motion, but the knees pretty much have to be in digitigrade orientation if you want any stability, sacrificing the useful articulation. In this mode, his connection pegs are on the backs of his boots. His melee weapons are kinda halfway between hooks and axes, with power cables that suggest they're energized blades. Undocumented feature: the hook weapons have an adapter piece that lets you plug them into the hands either for hooking in a downward slash or hooking in a sideways slash. (Insert your own joke about slash and hooking here.) Warning! The clips don't fit on the handles in every orientation, and trying to force it could result in the clip soaring across the room...a bad thing for a tiny gray piece of plastic. [Later note: this is also undocumented but seems to be the ACTUAL purpose of the clips. They are the new 3mm standard that lets them clip onto the hands of Brakedown or onto the bars on Brawn or Recon Ironhide.] Overall: Spring-loaded feet suck in general, but these aren't as bad as most. Too bad the weakness of the springs and the shape of the feet mean they can't actually grab anything thicker than a toothpick...or heavier. Other than the springfeet, though, it's a very nice vehicle with a good transformation and a fun robot mode. I could wish for a bit more range on the ankle joints (and no, it doesn't appear to be a simple kitbash, I think it'd require reducing structural integrity in a major way to get more range of motion), but these are relatively small problems on what is otherwise an ambitious Scout. AUTOBOT: SCATTORSHOT Altmode: Antiaircraft Truck Licensor: None Previous Name Use: Cybertron ("Scattershot" is a different name, which has also been getting reused) Previous Mold Use: None Function: Air Defense Motto: "Slaggit, you were supposed to be over THERE when I shot at you!" SCATTORSHOT usually finds surprise attacks upsetting, if only because they interrupt whatever careful plans he's laid out. Chaos bugs him like nothing else, and nothing is as chaotic as an unplanned battle. Still, he can't help but laugh as DIVEBOMB helplessly dodges his fire. Little does he suspect, but a second DECEPTICON is sneaking up on him from behind. STR 5 INT 7 SPD 4 END 9 RNK 6 COUR 8 FRB 10 SKL 6 Avg 6.875 When the first unnamed pictures of this mold surfaced, there was some fan speculation that this was the movie-styled Sentinel Prime, to go along with Lockdown. But instead, it's a different non-G1 homage, taken from the Cybertron cartoon. Mind you, Cybertron Scattorshot wasn't the Felix Unger of air defense like this one seems to be. At least in the cartoon he wasn't, although looking at the Cybertron toy's bio note I can see where you could take the "most neurotic Autobot ever created" in this direction. There's been some talk in fandom about a sort of Movie Wreckers team forming up, with characters like Scattorshot, Deluxe Brawn, Dune Runner and Armorhide forming the core of it. I support this idea. Packaging: 4 twist ties, one of which wraps up inside the torso. A rubber band holds the right arm together, just in case. Vehicle Mode: Toyota Tundra base, more or less. The lines are more angular in keeping with the fact this has been up-armored (including the obligatory "X-indented panels" on the doors) and reinforced. A diamondplate cowcatcher attached to the front (not really a plow at all) gives it more of an improvised Death Race/Mad Max feel rather than a production model combat vehicle, although he's too "professional" looking to count as a Technical. On the roof are a pair of antiaircraft cannons. Unlike most Transformers, the tailpipes aren't just bits stuck under the rear bumpers. They extend forward of the rear wheels, and form part of the robot mode detailing. Amusingly, there's a couple of bits at the rear of the pickup bed that look like they'd turn into the toes of the robot mode in a "standard" pickup transformation (bed becomes legs, hood becomes chest). But they end up on the backpack instead. :) With the cowcatcher, it's 4.75" (12cm) long, without it the base truck is 4" (10cm) long. That puts it at about 1:55 scale for a Tundra. Mostly dark blue with some gray, plus dull gold cannons. The majority of the body shell is dark blue plastic. The cowcatcher and tailpipes are gray plastic, and some gray plastic is visible in the truck bed. The cannons and some bits inside the truck bed are made of dull gold plastic. The tires are matte black plastic, and some bits of gloss black plastic are visible at the back of the cab and in the truck bed (that dumping ground of mismatched plastic colors). Dull gold paint is used on the X-panels on the doors and on the headlights. The windows are painted gloss black. The wheel hubs and front grille are painted silver. The rear side windows are armored over, with silver Autobot symbols printed on them. It rolls well on the wheels, with decent ground clearance. The cowcatcher cannot be raised up, although you can use the transformation joint to lower it if you want it scraping along. Each roof gun (2.5"/6cm long) can rotate independently on a swivel where it attaches to the roof, and elevate on as hinge to 80 degrees above horizontal. The handle bits that settle into the robot hands also drop down into dips caused by some exposed robot joints, to stabilize them in forward-facing positions. Transformation: Pull the front end down and split into legs, with the windshields becoming heels and the cowcatcher pieces swinging up to be kneecaps. The rear quarter pretty much just folds back a bit to reveal the head. It's the middle bit where all the panel folding and pegging happens, and I have heard of some people who couldn't get the doors to stay pegged properly, although that wasn't a problem on mine. The piece that holds the shoulders and forms the small of the back does a fairly complicated bit of folding around during transformation, and there's a little bit of Excessive Force required (so fan repainting will be a bit hampered by the scraping). Robot Mode: Sigh, it's just not Scattorshot without the yellow "goggles on the forehead" detail. I may have to add some. There's some little tiny "truck roof light"-like details on the top of his helmet, we're talking half a millimeter wide here, but they might have been the initial design homage. They just didn't get any paint. I have fixed that on mine (no pics, it's not really that impressive). You might also try replacing the head with the one from the Beachcomber redeco of Dune Runner, the blue is off but the shape is otherwise a lot more Scattorshotty. The fake bits continue here...his chest is molded to look like the front end of his truck mode has split apart like Ironhide's, even though his real front end forms his toes. It's got that definite TF:Animated toy feel in that respect, much like Sentinel Prime...make it look like it transforms in a totally different way than it actually does. 3.75" (9cm) tall at the head, 4" (10cm) at the hunchback. The exhaust pipes of the underside of the truck form a sort of funky shoulderpad set, and I suppose he could blow smoke through them when angry. Mostly dark blue and medium gray with a few bits of dark gold. The head is dark blue plastic, otherwise all the dark blue is from vehicle shell pieces. The upper arms, thighs, torso and the exhaust pipe bits are medium gray. The inner bits of the lower legs and the hands are black plastic. In addition to the guns, the dark gold plastic is used on the pelvis, the neck, the elbow joints and the piece that wraps from the small of the back around the sides of the chest to where the arms connect. The faceplate is painted dark gold with brighter gold eyes. The dark gold looks almost like gunmetal except under strong light. The fake vehicle front end on the chest is painted dark blue (not as dark as the plastic, though) with the headlights painted the same color as those on the vehicle. The outside surfaces of the upper arms are also painted that not-quite-as- dark blue. The vehicle mode Autobot symbols end up on the outer surfaces of the forearms, there's no Autobot symbol unique to robot mode. Oddly, I get a sort of Hot Rod feel out of the design. Not only is his chest a sort of movie Optimus Prime homage (something I'd expect a movie Rodimus to have), but he also has a collar that feels Roddish. Alternately, just add some red flames and it's Optimus Minor, movie edition. The head is on a ball joint, the waist is a swivel. Shoulders, hips and knees are ball joints. The elbows are a combination of hinge at the upper end and ball joint at the lower. Using the hinge part as the "real" elbow lets you bend the arm more without the guns getting in the way, but using the ball joint as the real elbow gives you the effective upper arm swivel sort of articulation (there's no actual upper arm swivel). The wrists are hinged to fold in for transformation. While you have to adjust the cowcatcher pieces, the transformation joints in the feet provide a good range of ankle motion. The long heelspurs created by the windshield halves give good support in a wide variety of stances. The guns still have their swivel-and-elevate motion, but they're mainly meant to have little handles fit into the hands. The guns are only pegged in, rather than held with metal pins or screws, so they can be removed if you want. However, there's no other place to peg them in place. The pegs are the "mushroom" sort, 2.5mm wide at the flared bit and 2.4mm wide on the "stalk". I don't think I have a 3/32" drill bit (that's the closest I'm likely to be able to find to a 2.5mm peg), but putting holes into the fake feet on the end of the pickup bed would let you store them on the back. Otherwise, just swivel the barrels out of the way to "stow" them. Overall: Nothing spectacular about this mold, but it's solid in almost every respect. I would have liked a slightly more Scattorshot-like head, but taking the toy on its own merits it's a good one. Dave Van Domelen, still has a fairly tall stack of unopened toys.