Dave's Beast Hunters Rant: Commander Wave 2

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Transformers Rant: Beast Hunters Commanders Wave 2

Hardshell (Beetle)
Trailcutter (Ironhide retool)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Prime/Commander6

Naturally, since Hardshell is a troopbuilder sort of figure, it's the
shortpack.

http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Prime/Commander2 - Ironhide mold


CAPSULES

$10-12 price point.

Hardshell: Pretty solid in both modes, interesting transformation. It's
not in show-accurate colors, or available easily enough to army-build, but
it's worth picking up one. Recommended.
Trailcutter: Original mold was mildly recommended, but this is a pretty
extensive retool. Unfortunately, while different enough to not get a
downgrade in rating for being a redeco, it doesn't fix any of the problems
either, so it's also mildly recommended.


RANTS

Packaging: Same as the first Beast Hunters wave.


DECEPTICON: HARDSHELL
Altmode: Insect
Weapon: Plague Missile Launcher
Series: 3
Number: 004
Transformation Difficulty: Easy (1)
Previous Name Use: None
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Demolitions Expert
Motto: "Pah, what can a HUMAN YOUNGLING do to one such as I?"

A powerful INSECTICON warrior who hungers for AUTOBOT circuitry!

STR 8 INT 4 SPD 6 END 10 RNK 9 COUR 10 FRB 8 SKL 2 Avg 7.125

I guess his Rank is because he's head of the Insecticons.

Note that the color scheme of the toy does not match the show model at
all, nor is it in keeping with the idea that Hardshell is the new trademark
for Bombshell. Of course, Hardshell is a beetle while Bombshell was a
weevil, but the color scheme of this toy gets it right in homaging Barrage,
the G1 Insecticon who WAS a beetle.

Packaging: Four rubber bands, one of which loops over to hold the
missile launcher in place.

Robot Mode: A hulking insectoid figure with digitigrade legs and a
generally armored look. It has a permanently hunched pose, with its neck
being almost parallel to the ground (it can be lifted up on a transformation
hinge, but that reveals a big gap...the hinge seems to be there only to let
the head drop down a little to tuck in for insect mode). It has big
shoulderpads that aren't connected to the upper arms, but instead are on
struts connected to the backpack.
3.5" (9cm) tall and a mix of greens, grays and golden yellow. A darkish
kelly green is used on the head/neck, torso, abdomen, shoulderpads, outer
parts of the forearms, lower two segments of the legs, and the beast head
backpack. A light pearly violet-gray plastic is used on the upper arms,
inner forearms, wings, and the struts for the shoulderpads. Gunmetal plastic
makes up the hips, feet, and much of the backpack.
A somewhat gloppy-looking golden yellow paint is used on the shoulderpad
spikes, bits on the chest and pelvis, and the entire abdomen. Most of the
face (and its spines) is painted silver, as are the backs of the forearms. A
purple Decepticon symbol is printed on the right side of the chest, and the
eyeslit is red. Somewhat subtler, there's some olive green paint on the
shoulderpads, the underside of the neck, and the tops of the tarsal sections
(the "backwards shins").
The head does NOT turn. And in trying to force it to see if it was just
paintlocked, I broke one of the sideburn spikes, oops. (I reglued it, but I
don't recommend you mess with it yourself.) The neck is on a hinge as
mentioned earlier, but this is only for a little bit of movement in
transformation. No waist. The shoulders, hips, elbows and mid-foot ankles
are ball joints, while the knees and true ankles are hinges (the knees bend
the wrong way, though, and are really just transformation joints). The wings
are on ball joints, but very restricted by the other backpack elements.
The hands can hold 3mm pegs, and there's 3mm peg holes on the backs of
the forearms.

Weapon: Another "Cyberjet missile" launcher, but shaped in such a way
that it's very hard to get a good enough grip to launch the missile. Both
missile and launcher are made of the pearley violet-gray plastic. The
launcher is 1.75" (4.5cm) long, and the missile is 2.75" (7cm) long. It
looks decent as a single piece, though, so I'm just going to ignore the fact
it's supposed to fire.

Transformation: The shoulderpads swing back on their struts and join
together, the head on the backpack lifts up and then the entire backpack
spins around. Then the figure bends at the waist and tucks in at the torso,
with the legs folding up to form the abdomen. The robot arms unfold to form
the rear pair of legs.
If you leave the robot legs untransformed, you can get an eight-legged
monstrosity instead. It doesn't look at all like a spider, though, and I
find the toy looks better properly transformed.

Beast Mode: While G1 Barrage was a Japanese rhinoceros beetle
(kabutomushi), this is more of a stylized Hercules beetle. With a sort of
Guiron mouth going on. It does a pretty good job of hiding most of the robot
bits, with only the robot hands sticking up on the ankles of the hindmost
legs.
5" (12cm) long with a wingspan up to 5.25" (12.5cm) but more
natural-looking at slightly less than that. The head is entirely green
plastic, the thorax covery is the green plastic of those shoulderpads, and
the abdomen is a mix of green and gunmetal. The front two pairs of legs are
single chunk of gunmetal plastic, while the rear legs are pale purple in
their upper two segments and green in the final segment. The yellow and
olive paint of the shoulderpads now comes together for thoracic decoration,
and there's silver on the face and teeth. Yes, the mouth opens to reveal
reptilian teeth. The eyes are painted red. I think the idea is that the
robot face actually distends to become the beast face, one of those CG tricks
that can't work on a toy this size (or any size, really).
The front four legs really don't move in any significant way, being a
single piece hinged on a rod connecting the middle pair. The jaw is hinged
to open and close, and the rear pair of legs have ball joint shoulders and
knees with hinged ankles. The wings are still ball jointed, and now they
have room to move around. While you can still use the robot arm mountings
for weapons, it's kinda awkward, and there's a single peg hole in the center
of the abdomen for placing the weapon.

Overall: While they've done everything they could to keep this from
being the armybuilder it should have been (shortpacking, not using
show-accurate coloration) it's a decent Scout-class toy in its own right.


AUTOBOT: TRAILCUTTER
Altmode: SUV
Weapon: Howler Missile Launcher
Series: 3
Number: 005
Transformation Difficulty: Easy (1)
Previous Name Use: RotF(RTS)
Previous Mold Use: TF:P (extensive retool)
Function: Commando
Motto: "Why do the humans laugh when I say that when I go, I go commando?"

TRAILCUTTER is a skilled wilderness warrior with an impenetrable force
field!

STR 6 INT 7 SPD 5 END 7 RNK 5 COUR 6 FRB 6 SKL 5 Avg 5.875

Packaging: Three rubber bands, one of which loops over to hold the
launcher in place. The roof parts on the forearms are folded down in-package
rather then folded closed.

Color Swaps: Everything that could be considered recolored is now black
plastic. The new launcher, missile, and new center hood are light gray
plastic.

Paint Apps: In robot mode, there's silver on the shoulder cannons, face,
shoulder headlights, forearm blades, abdomen sides and kneecaps. There's a
lot of gloss red, on the visor, shins, forearms, and shoulder stripes. The
chest windows are light silvery blue. A tiny red Autobot symbol is printed
on the sternum.
Vehicle mode has more silvery light blue windows, and yellow stripes
along the sides. There's no attempt at the yellow-orange-red pattern of G1
Trailbreaker, and the back seat side windows are unpainted.

Mold Changes: Fairly extensive. There's a new head, which while
homaging the G1 animation model a little looks more like a beefed up TF:A
Prowl head. The headlight/fender pieces are remolded to add cannons to the
hood, which point forward (like a G1 Bluestreak/Prowl/Smokescreen) rather
than up like the G1 Trailbreaker toy. They can be elevated, but that lifts
up the headlights as well. The light gray hood piece adds a 3mm peg hole to
the hood, and has Trailbreaker's force field projector circles molded into
the part that sticks up behind the head. The shoulder/bumper pieces now have
a sort of cowcatcher/plow/ramplate bit molded into them, which gives the
robot mode big bladey shoulderpads. The roof pieces are also remolded to add
bladed fins that look pretty dumb in vehicle mode but make for decent battle
blades in robot mode. The chest window piece has been remolded to have two
separate panes.
Still, the abdomen on down is unaltered, the forearm cores are the same,
and the wheels are the same.

Other Notes: Interestingly, they left in the LED-pipe peg on the back of
the robot mode (for connecting Star Hammer's lightpipe) despite changing the
plastic to opaque.
The joints are really loose, even worse than on Ironhide.

Weapon: The launcher has three blades around the missile, which looks
like a net projectile or bola. The missile is 3" (7.5cm) long, and the
launcher without the missile is only half that long.

Overall: Didn't fix the problems with the original mold, just added
blades and guns. It's better than the previous Cyberverse Trailcutter, but
not by a lot. You might want to wait for the upcoming redeco of this
retool, which at least would be a different character.


Dave Van Domelen, on to Generations Grimlock.