Dave's Transformers the Last Knight Rant: Voyager Wave 3 Decepticon Nitro (jet fighter) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/TFLK/VNitro This wave also includes Scorn, which I'll review separately. CAPSULE $25-30 price point. Decepticon Nitro: Decent robot mode, good vehicle mode, transformation that has a lot of problems in its execution. Compatible with Titan Masters, but doesn't actually have one. Mildly recommended, mainly knocked down because of transformation hassles. RANT Packaging: Standard TF5 Voyager box. This toy really has an identity crisis, though...it's not just that the name is Nitro Zeus in the movie. The movie character model is basically one of the unnamed human-built Decepticons from Age of Extinction, with a Shockwave (Dark of the Moon) head spliced on. The box art is of the AoE no-name with its original head. And the toy, while inspired by that AoE no-name, has a head that is neither of the previous two heads. Looks more like an evil Jetfire/Shockwave hybrid. As noted in the body of the review, the jet mode doesn't look like the movie either. Between this and Scorn (who wasn't even in Last Knight) I have to wonder if this wave was entirely leftover designs that never got made for Age of Extinction, but got dusted off to pad out a line that got very little toy love compared to previous movies. DECEPTICON: DECEPTICON NITRO Assortment: C0891 Altmode: Jet fighter Transformation Difficulty: 35 steps (gah!) Previous Name Use: None (a no-modifier Nitro was a Japanese redeco of Armada's Oval Mini-Con) Previous Mold Use: None Epithet: Lethal Hunter Packaging: Seven ties hold the robot mode into the blister, with a rubber band keeping the head from falling off (necessary in my case because they didn't bother making sure the peg fit into the collar in the correct direction, mine was turned sideways). Each of the missile pods is held in with one tie, instead of having them mounted on the backpack. It's notable that the packaging does not mention the removable head with Titan Master compatibility. Nor do the instructions show that the head can be removed (it doesn't have to come off for transformation). This is NOT a Titan Master toy, strictly speaking, as the head cannot turn into a robot. But you can put other Titan Masters on in its place (popular choice: Thunderwing from the Siege on Cybertron set). Robot Mode: In most respects, this is a fairly standard "Bayformer" design. Lots of curved blade-like details all over where not covered by vehicle elements, a head with the wrong number of eyes (at first glance there's just the one big cyclopean eye in the middle, but if you put it under sunlight or a strong flashlight you can see four more painted yellow, and several other sub-optics that are painted over in black, so anywhere from 5 to 13 total eyes), digitigrade legs, and so forth. I'm trying to find a clear picture of his robot mode from the movie, but everything that shows up in searches so far is from murky scenes or ones with a lot of motion blur. There has to be at least one or two good shots from the fight in the abandoned neighborhood, though. Near as I can tell, though, the physical molding is a reasonably close match to the character model in the movie, modulo kibble and the Shockwave head in the movie. The nose end of his jet mode splits apart to form a shield integrated into his right forearm (it also could pass for a crossbow like weapon, with fake canards looking like the limbs of a bow), while a large vulcan autocannon extends from a housing on his left forearm. His legs are covered in armor plating, damping the "backwards knees" look of his digitigrade stance, and he has big thrusters on his back with missile pods attached to them. Unfortunately, the tail end of his jet mode just hangs out back. If they'd gone with a movie-accurate Rafale altmode, there'd be less tail to worry about, although more wing. Smaller vulcan cannons flank his head, the sort of design that only works if there's nothing important IN the head. Given his limited characterization in the movie, I'd say Nitro doesn't keep much of importance in his head, so losing it in the final fight probably didn't kill him. :) One of the weirder details is on his abdomen, where rods and gears are molded into the shape of draconic claws gripping his sides. It feels like they tried to cram some Knight/Dragon motifs into him despite the fact he's not a Knight of Cybertron...his head visor has a knight's helmet sort of feel to it as well, with antennae/wings on the sides. Amusing note: the thrusters on his back are supposed to be his jet engines, but in both this toy and the movie, he turns into a single-engine jet. 7" (18cm) tall at the head, his backpack with missile attached rises to 7.5" (19cm). The color scheme is predominantly light gray and black, with some accents in red, dark copper, and yellow, plus a bit of incongruous silver on one arm. Most of the toy is light gray plastic, although a lot of the "skeleton" bits are black plastic. Black plastic is used for the collar (with its attached guns), the antennae on the head, the inner shoulder parts, the upper arms, the main cannon and its housing, the left fist, hinges on the shield, some fake canards on the shield, the sides of the abdomen, the core of the pelvis, the hips, the skeleton of the thighs, and some hinges in the backpack. Clear slightly smoked plastic is used for the back of the head (but there's paint over the entire visor area, so no lightpiping) and the cockpit window on the shield. Everything else is light gray plastic. Significant parts of the toy are painted gloss black, including the background of the visor area, the sternum, the dragon claw bits on the sides, the right fist and wrist, the inner bit of the toes and the heel claws (yeah, his heels have four clawed toes, another dragon element), the sides of the knees, and the intakes on the backpack thrusters. A slightly metalflaked matte black plastic is found on many of the jet parts, and will be described in the vehicle section. The main eye is painted yellow, and tiny dots on four subsidiary eyes are also painted yellow. There's dark copper on the tips of the abdomen claws, on several details on the feet, and some piping on the shins. A dark gray 7 is printed on the right thigh armor pad, and a red 13 on the left shoulderpad. A matte black Decepticon symbol is printed on the right side of the chestplate. The housing of the main gun is mostly painted silver, perhaps intended as a match to the light gray paint? The missile pods are dipped in white paint, and the thrusters are the folded up wings and have the paint and printing described in the vehicle section (their Decepticon symbols end up upside down). The neck is basically a ball joint, but the collar base itself can tilt forward for transformation, giving a little more range of motion. No waist articulation, because the pelvis halves snap together. Universal joint shoulders, upper arm swivels, hinge elbows on both arms. The shoulderpads are on hinges to get out of the way some when necessary. The shield can impede range of motion on the right arm. The left wrist has a transformation hinge, but the right fist is molded in a single piece with the forearm. Universal joint hips, hinge knees, hinge ankles. The armor plates over the thighs are hinged, so when you bend the knees the plates can either follow the thighs or stick up as big kneepads. The backpack thrusters are on struts with a little wiggle range, but the whole wings-and-tail chunk does tend to get in the way (it can be used as a support for some poses, at least). The main gun can slide in and out of its housing, but the big tab on the housing that at first looks like it controls this is just a transformation tab and does not move. The head is detachable and connects via a standard Titan Master peg arrangement. However, there's a bit more open space around the socket than in most Titans Return toys, leading to a looser fit (especially on my copy) and the genuine need for that rubber band. The peg doesn't have a face molded on it, and the head does not unfold into a robot form. Pretty much everyone who has both this and the Siege on Cybertron set has put Thunderwing on Nitro's body (I haven't yet, but I won't be opening my Siege set until it hits the top of the review queue). The hands can hold 5mm pegs, and the triple-rocket pods are on 5mm pegs but look kinda dumb in his hands. They have dedicated 5mm peg holes on the top back side of the thrusters. There's a 3mm peg hole on the underside of the pelvis for use in flight stands. Transformation: 35 steps seems about right. I was able to puzzle it out without needing the instructions (other than making sure I didn't need to remove the head), but it's pretty unforgiving on where things must be. One leg flips out of the way to let the right arm swing down to poke out of the bottom of the pelvis, hence the slight asymmetry in the torso (to allow for the joint). Everything does eventually peg together well, but I had to use Excessive Force (TM) to get the calves of the legs snapped into the gaps on either side of the torso. The vulcan cannon retracts most of the way into the arm, so it looks reasonably like a single jet thruster nozzle in back. While in principle the head can stay on during transformation, it's likely to pop off at some point, especially if the neck joint looseness is endemic. The collar area needs to fold back so that the head doesn't scrape along on the table, and it's a very stiff joint on a piece that itself has a fairly loose hinge. I often had to go back and re-attach bits when the force needed by later steps caused others to pop out, but I didn't have anything actually fall off other than the head and the backpack's fake thruster bits. At least the head is supposed to be removable. Transforming back to robot mode was mostly easier, as one might expect, but folding the wings up into the backpack thrusters resulted in a lot of panels popping off. Also, the head practically flew off when I started pulling the legs out from the sides. Vehicle Mode: This is some sort of 4th Generation fighter jet, lots of F-16 Falcon elements (including the single tail and single jet engine), but not quite a Falcon. The big difference is that the air intakes are on either side of the cockpit rather than the single big intake on the underside as in the F-16 and its competitors like the Chinese J-10. I can't find any real jet with these slim rectangular intakes...they're like those on an F-15 but way thinner, barely more than vertical slits. It might actually be based on the Taiwanese F-CK-1 (yes, that's its actual designation), although the tail doesn't quite match. There's a load of underside kibble, but it doesn't look too bad from above. Note, the movie model turns into a completely different 4th Gen fighter, the Rafale (used for Skywarp and Thundercracker in Machine Wars). 10" (26cm) long, with a wingspan of 6.5" (16.5cm), making it about 1:60 scale if it's meant to be about as big as an F-16. The color scheme is predominantly light gray and black with touches of white and red. Most of the black plastic parts are "hidden" in this mode, but the nose wheel strut is black plastic. The cockpit window is colorless clear plastic, maybe very slightly smoked. The nose section is painted in slightly metalflake yet still matte black, and matte black is also used for the trailing edges of the wings and the trailing edge of the vertical tailfin. A more saturated non-metalflake black is used to print the Decepticon symbols on the wings. There's thin red strips painted parallel to the fuselage but almost out at the wingtips. The 7 on one thighguard looks more like a half-arrow now. Some of the dark copper paint from robot mode is visible, but it's all on kibble and not intentionally in vehicle mode. The nose wheel folds out of the right forearm, while the rear landing gear are on the machine cannons that flanked the head in robot mode. There's a single 5mm hole under each wing, with very little clearance, really just enough to fit the little missile pods. There's no 2mm pegs, but the openable cockpit is fully compatible with Titan Masters that have non-busy faceplates (i.e. Blurr's wouldn't work). Nitro's own head does not fit inside the cockpit, it's too wide. It's meant to stay attached during transformation, but it's just barely possible to get it attached after transformation as well, the collar area can be pulled out a little bit to get the needed clearance. The 3mm peg hole under the pelvis ends up kinda buried, but now the belly button 3mm peg hole comes into play for use with a flight stand. As nice as the jet mode is, though, it's such a hassle getting it transformed that I'll probably leave this in robot mode. Overall: An interesting design, but the engineering isn't quite up to the task of making it work. Several snap-on hinges really needed to be pinned, and the legs require too much force to get into place for vehicle mode. Other than severe backpack-ness, the robot mode is good, and the vehicle mode is pretty good as well. It's mostly just the hassle of getting it between the modes that knocks this down a notch or two. Dave Van Domelen, now to go to the other end of the complexity scale and review some Cyber Battalion Series toys.