Dave's TFLK Rant: Voyager Megatron, Hound

[Dave Van Domelen]

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?

[Gustavo Wombat]

Dave Van Domelen <dva...@eyrie.org> wrote:
> Dave's Transformers the Last Knight Rant: Voyager Wave 2
>
> Megatron (space jet)
>

> 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 ...

The only thing I don't like about this toy is the color scheme. It's a fine
color scheme, really, but a bit monotonous in robot mode.

If there is ever a gaudy redeco I will happily buy that too. Blue Angels
Megatron or something.

--
I wish I was a mole in the ground.