Dave's Transformers the Last Knight Rant: Voyager Wave 2 Megatron (space jet) Autobot Hound (military truck) Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/TFLK/VoyagerP1 Interestingly, there's a gap between the assortment numbers here, and a huge gap compared to Optimus. I guess plans changed. A lot. "Premier" doesn't seem to really mean anything more than "bigger than a Legend, but with more than four steps in the transformation" as far as the movie line is concerned. I guess they now consider the Turbochangers to be "standard" Transformers? CAPSULES $27-30 price point. Megatron: Very nice design, good in both modes and with a transformation that is complex without being particularly frustrating. It has a minor problem with part alignment in vehicle mode, but enough redundancy to keep it stable despite that. Aesthetically, the greebles-and-swarf look works better here than on Autobots. Strongly recommended. Autobot Hound: Pretty good if somewhat kibbly in robot mode, good transformation, solid vehicle mode. Not as interesting as AoE Hound, but also not as prone to issues of tolerance. Recommended. RANTS Packaging: Same as the first wave. DECEPTICON: MEGATRON Assortment: C2355 Altmode: Space Jet Transformation Difficulty: 22 steps Previous Name Use: Yes Previous Mold Use: None Epithet: Merciless Tyrant Packaging: 8 ties on the robot, one on the sword/axe. Robot Mode: I think he may be cosplaying as an Uruk-Hai. In any case, this is a pretty impressive representation of the character as seen in the movie. While there's some obvious vehicle bits that can't just morph away like in the movie, they're pretty well integrated. Some fuselage panels become armor skirt, the nose section is okay as a backpack, and the wings actually fold up into the calves of the lower legs instead of making a wingpack or cloak as on the other toys I currently have of this Megatron. The arm cannon is present, if smallish. There's a certain dullness to the design when viewed from a distance, but that's the fault of the movie, not this toy in particular. The general kibble-and-swarf aesthetic doesn't bother me as much here as on Optimus, since movie Megatron is generally pretty contemptuous of the idea of disguise, there's no disconnect between a sleek and smooth vehicle mode and the random angles and spiky bits as seen in Optimus...it's all random angles and spiky bits in all modes if Megatron has any say about his appearance. 7" (18cm) tall, and overwhelmingly a slightly metalflake medium dark gray, with some gold accents and a few lighter gray pieces. There's clear red lightpiping in the core of the head, although the input vents are on the forehead rather than in back. The open-helmet wing bits on the head, the upper arms, upper thighs, lower shins, sword, and some struts are made from a lightish gunmetal plastic. Everything else in this mode is cool darkish metalflake gray plastic. A dull gold paint stands out on the lower face, forearm details, cannon details, parts of the abdomen, and bits on the right shoulderpad. There's some black paint on vents in his right chest, and a black Decepticon symbol on his left chest. There's also a fair amount of gunmetal paint, some of which blends in and is not very obvious: face details, some on the left chest, kneespikes, details on top of the feet (blending in nicely with the armor panel in gunmetal plastic right above), a V on the belt buckle area, the sides of the abdomen, and I think some of the right shoulder...it's hard to be sure. Some thruster-like details on the sides of the armor skirt are painted a bluish silver. It could really use a metallic drybrushing to bring out details and make the metal look more like it has been scraped clean by panels sliding over one another. Very impressive articulation and range of motion, although some poses make the armor skirt look like it's exploding off him. Head is on a ball joint with decent range of motion, no waist. The shoulders are universal joints, with panels in the shoulder armor that lift up to let the arms rise all the way up to the sides. Upper arm swivels, and while the elbows are only single hinged they can bend nearly double without leaving visible gaps. The wrists only bend inward on transformation hinges. The cannon on the right forearm has a hinge that lets it be in deployed and standby positions. Universal joint hips, and all four armor skirt pieces are hinged to get out of the way. Thigh swivels, hinge knees, and the ankles have side to side hinges as part of the transformation scheme. All the joints on my copy are very tight, no ratcheting needed. The hands can hold 5mm pegs, and there's a 3mm peg hole on the back of the pelvis, but that's it for standard connectors. The rest of the tabs and slots are idiosyncratic. The weapon is mostly a sword, but with an axe-like tip...the sort of weapon no real soldier would use because it emphasizes scary appearance over functionality. A single 4.75" (12cm) piece of gunmetal plastic with a fiarly long but tapered hilt, the crosspiece runs up against some details on the forearm and keeps the hilt from seating all the way in. It has a tab on one side of the crosspiece intended for vehicle mode storage. Undocumented feature: there's a second slot on the underside of the nose, so the sword can either be attached for sky-jousting action, or more reasonably stored on the robot's back. This does block the 3mm peg hole in the pelvis, however. Transformation: Your basic "unpeg everything then move it around until you can repeg it" transformation, I was able to figure it all out from that basic principle. The one bit that gives me trouble is pegging the two forearms together...the rest of the vehicle holds together fine if the forearms aren't in the right place, but the bit of cannon poking up through the top of the fuselage ends up askew a bit. Vehicle Mode: It's a space jet, with various greebles that say "I have contempt for your concepts of disguise, not to mention several of your theories regarding aerodynamics." Some details from the armor skirt that really loooked like rocket thruster bells are actually pointed forward... maybe they're Bussard-style ramscoop projectors? And, of course, the thing that looks like a V-8 engine at mid-fuselage. Those are the intentional bits, of course, there's also kibble issues, like the non-symmetric shoulderpads stuck on the back end, or the feet clinging to the underside of the wings. There's no landing gear per se, just some tiny skid-like bits on the underside. Unlike the Legion class, these are sufficient for the jet to rest stably on the table without tilting over to one side. 9" (23cm) long, with a wingspan of 9" as well, in a rough T shape, longer if you attach the sword. If you put the sword on the front slot to make for a ramming spike, the total length is aboug 11" (28cm). At a guess, if the cockpit is meant to hold a pilot, the pilot would be between 1.5cm and 2cm tall, so 1:144 to 1:200 scale, give or take. Almost all of the lighter gray plastic is concealed in this mode, just visible through some cracks or from odd angles. The only exceptions are some struts flanking the V-8. The cockpit canopy is clear red plastic, although it's mostly covered in gold paint. The V-8 engine is also painted dull gold, as are intakes flanking the cockpit and a stripe on the leading edge of each wing. No articulation, not that such is expected in this mode. The 3mm peg hole is accessible through a gap, so the jet can be posed on a standard clear stand. It's too far in for mounting weapons, though. No other standard connectors, but two places for the sword to attach. Overall: Really well designed, if somewhat visually dull, robot mode. Transformation is complex without being frustrating, and it doesn't require manufacturing tolerances that the factory can't deliver (a creeping problem with larger DotM and AoE designs). Well, not too often, and there's redundancy for holding the vehicle mode together. AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT HOUND Assortment: C2357 Altmode: Mercedes Unimog tactical vehicle Transformation Difficulty: 21 steps Previous Name Use: Alternators, Uni2, RotF, AoE, Gen ("Hound" alone in G1) Previous Mold Use: None Epithet: Munitions Expert Packaging: 7 ties on the robot, 1 each on the five weapons. The toes are folded in so that they don't rub up against the window. Also, the ammo belts on the biceps are rotated forward to block the elbow joints, but I guess that was more to show off that they exist, as they shouldn't be in that position for either mode (on the sides for robot, over the triceps for vehicle mode). The package shows him with his triple vulcan gun, but his weapons loadout is very different here. Robot Mode: As with the AoE Voyager, this is more of a young Hound, before all of his components drifted to the midsection. It's more "beefy" than fat, and with the somewhat proportionally large head and thick beard one gets the impression of a Tolkien-style dwarf in decent shape. The various harness-like details on the torso, along with the belt, give more of a paratrooper look than anything else...he isn't fat, he just has a lot of gear. Various kinds of grenade are clipped to his harness and belt, for instance. The balance is iffy, because the feet are mostly just wheel-sized, have no heel spurs, and the hip joints are behind the center of mass line. The cab halves just hang off the calves, interfering with knee bending and not helping at all with the lack of heel spurs. There's enough articulation to get the figure to stand without support, but it's kinda annoying. 6.5" (16.5cm) tall but bulky to make up for it, it's mostly light olive drab with various shades of gray, and some silver and copper. Most of the outer shell of the toy is made of light olive drab plastic. The guns are light gray plastic. Charcoal gray plastic is used on the feet, the ammo belt bits on the forearms, and some of the internal struts and bits in the pelvis and ankles. A lighter gunmetal gray is used on the rest of each upper arm, the rest of the ankle and pelvis stuff, and the wheels that are on the backpack (so yes, the front and rear wheels in vehicle mode aren't quite the same shade of plastic). The outer shell of each shoulder is olive drab, but the bit that swings up to the side is gunmetal, including a panel molded to look like part of the shoulderpad...so painting that would be one user-end tweak to make. Lots of charcoal gray paint on bits of rollbar attached around th ebody, as well as on the gut. More of a gunmetal paint on the shins, parts of the thighs, forearm ammo belts, center chest. The face is silver with some charcoal gray for the "beads" on the beard and bright blue eyes. (The face makes me think Maestro more than Hound, to be honest.) The casing of the upper arm ammo belt and the belt part itself is painted copper, these seem to be rifle-propelled grenades rather than belt ammo however. The overalls harness thing on the chest is gloss light gray. The treads of the wheels (and feet) are painted a lighter shade of olive drab than the plastic. The head is on a ball joint, the waist is a swivel that can turn about 45 degrees either way before kibble blocks further motion. The shoulders have universal joints, on mine the "lift up to the sides" hinges are a bit loose (probably mold release oil). The upper arm swivels are joined by independent swivels for the RPG clips. Two hinges for each elbow, the arms can bend almost double. The wrists swivel, plus they have hinges for transformation that let them swing out to the sides. The hips are universal joints, but there's vehicle kibble on the tops of the hips, and that tends to run into the belt panel (which, while hinged, is supposed to tab into place). The kibble also interferes with the upper thigh swivels. Hinge knees, heavily blocked as earlier mentioned. The ankles can bend inward and the feet spin around on slightly ratcheting pins (something about transformation unlinks this, so the wheels can spin freely in vehicle mode). The toes are on soft-ratcheting hinges, so you can Don Martin-ize them a little bit to help the figure lean back and get its center of mass better over support. The hands can hold 5mm pegs, but the hand molding with partly extended index fingers makes it hard to get the guns to fit snugly unless you bend the wrist back a bit on the transformation hinge (and that's loose when not snapped in place). There's a load of other 5mm peg holes, not all of which will work for all guns, including seven on the backpack and backskirt (the one in the middle is clearly for the turret base piece). The four on the skirt are somewhat blocked by other stuff in this mode, and seem more intended for vehicle mode. There's a 3mm stand peg in the back of the pelvis, and three more 3mm peg holes on the side of each leg (so if you lend him a bunch of Cyberverse weapons he can gear up). One on each leg is a bit tight due to paint. There's a couple of holes facing forwards on the sides of the abdomen, but they're about 4mm. Also, there's a 5mm hole on the front facing hollow side of each behind-the-shoulder backpack piece, but it's hard to get anything into it without blocking arm motion. Unlike the AoE Voyager, this toy only has four guns, plus a fifth piece that is used to turn them into a turret for truck mode. Two are big rectangular blasters with dual apertures, a sort of plasma shotgun thing. These are 2.5" (6cm) long with single 5mm peg handles and 5mm peg holes on the undersides a bit ahead of the handles. There's two more 5mm peg holes on the underside behind the grip, used mainly for turret mode. There's also two tribarrel pistols just shy of 2" (5cm) long with three apertures arranged inside triangular housings at the barrel end. They have a main 5mm peg handle, two short 5mm pegs flanking it for a T-shape, and a 5mm peg hole opposite the main peg. These are mainly to give more options when combining all five pieces into a turret weapon. The last piece isn't really anything on its own, roughly T-shaped it has a main connector peg on the bottom, a rod with two opposed 5mm pegs for attaching guns, and a 5mm peg hole on top behind the rod. There's also a slot that looks like it could hold a rectangular tab for something, but that may just be coincidence on a mold-lightening gap. Actual documented feature: the helmet is removable. This just increases his resemblance to Maestro (old alternate future evil Hulk, for those not into Marvel comics). On its own, the helmet makes me think of original movie Tron helmets. Transformation: Rather more involved than Megatron, and it uses the "pull up the torso along the spine" trick to get a longer wheelbase, although the legs then fold up pretty extensively to shorten it again. This is one of those transformations where it's a lot easier the second time (or, I suppose, after reading the instructions) and it's clear where everything's supposed to go. The belt is folded down in the instructions during transformation, but a hidden step has it fold back up to fill in a small gap along the side. There's deliberately a lot of ways to connect the guns to make a bigger gun or a turret, but the instructions do show how to get the way seen on the box back. Many supergun configurations can be held by the robot, especially since the turret base's connector peg is long enough to reach the pinkie fingers of the semi-open hands. Vehicle Mode: Abandoning his vehicle mode from AoE, he's now a Mercedes-Benz Unimog tactical vehicle, of the U5000 series. Unimog, as a brand, covers a LOT of trucks. This particular build is "backless" meaning it looks more like a pickup truck than like a moving van, although the turret weapon does fill in the back end nicely. As noted earlier, the treads of the wheels are painted, which makes it look like Hound has been driving through a thin layer of light green-gray mud. 6" (15cm) long, for about 1:40 scale. The olive drab is even more dominant in this mode, with all the light gray concentrated in the turret if you have the weapons attached that way. The wheels are as mentioned above, there's a charcoal gray brushguard on the front, and all the rest of the vehicle exterior is light olive drab plastic. The rollbar around the cab is painted charcoal (good match), with six yellow headlights and gunmetal on the recessed parts of the front grille. No paint on the molded BMW symbol in the center of the grille. The windows are painted gloss dark blue, and there's 8 Decepticon "kill stickers" on each door (small white Decepticon symbols with slashes through them). The forearm ammo belts on the back of the cab kinda work as a headache rack. Loads of 5mm peg holes. There's one in the trailer hitch position, where the turret goes, and four spread out just ahead of that. There's also one on each side of the rear fender. No underside 3mm peg hole, but this isn't the sort of vehicle that gets air. With the turret in place, it can be elevated and rotated, although when the barrels are horizontal the front 90 degree or so of arc is blocked. Rolls smoothly with okay ground clearance. Overall: Slightly more forgiving design than AoE Voyager Hound in terms of everything fitting, although the articulation of robot mode is limited by projecting panels. The lighter plastic color allows the details to stand out even when not painted, but the simplified arsenal is a bit of a disappointment next to the AoE toy (at least it all stores stably). Less ambitious, but more successful at execution, I guess. Dave Van Domelen, now has the TRU Deluxes on deck. "Skullitron?" Really?