Dave's Transformers Rant: PRiD Battlepacks wave 3

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Transformers: PRiD Rant: Battle Packs wave 3

Strongarm & Mini-Con Sawtooth (truck and trident)
Sideswipe & Mini-Con Windstrike (white redeco, sword)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/PRiD/Hunter3

Yeah, the "Decepticon Hunter" conceit has been abandoned in favor of
Weaponizer partners, but I'm gonna stick with the filename "Hunter".
They've gone to new green-accent trade dress, and continue to pair a Legends
sized figure with a Mini-Con and clear accessories. Unlike the Hunter packs,
the accessories can go on either figure.

http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/PRiD/Hunter1 - Sideswipe mold


CAPSULES

$15 price point, but I got lucky and Target had accidentally neglected
to un-clearance the assortment after they got rid of their waves 1 and 2, so
I paid $10.48 each.

Strongarm & Mini-Con Sawtooth: Mediocre (if very show-accurate in shape)
mold for Strongarm, and really sad paint apps...not as bad as Tiny Titans,
but quite bad. Sawtooth is weird but good. Mildly recommended.

Sideswipe & Mini-Con Windstrike: Original version got a mildly
recommended, but I was mostly disappointed in the elements that weren't
Sideswipe. This is, however, a boring redeco with accessories that don't all
stay on either figure very well. Wingstrike is a nice enough swordformer on
its own, though. Very mildly recommended.

Note, in both cases I like the Mini-Con more than the Legends figure.


RANTS

Packaging: Same form factor as the previous two waves, but with a lime
green accent color dominating the blister insert card and used as the top
bits of the cardback. There's a new Mini-Con Weaponizers logo as well, a bot
silhouette inside a cog shape, lime green with bright blue text.


AUTOBOT: STRONGARM
MINI-CON: SAWTOOTH
Assortment: B7676
Altmode: Patrol truck; trident
Transformation Difficulty: 8 steps; 1 step
Previous Name Use: Energon, PRiD; None (name has been used for non-toy stuff)
Previous Mold Use: None
Weapon: Energy blades; is weapon
Function: Rookie Cop
Motto: "I much prefer this variety of Mini-Con."

Packaging: Five ties on Strongarm, two on Sawtooth, one on each of the
six accessories. The window wings are not deployed, and the instructions are
a little vague on their existence.
The package art shows Sawtooth used as a blaster weapon of some sort,
which is sort of doable, I suppose. It also shows Sawtooth being mostly
green, which the included toy is not.

Robot Mode: Other than having the front fenders on the shoulders and the
vehicle doors hanging from the forearms, this does a pretty good job of being
show-accurate...in the molding. The colors are woefully inadequate, though.
I'm particularly disappointed by the choice of a "splat it all on" paint mask
for the head rather than trying to leave white the parts of the helmet that
should be white.
4" (10cm) tall at the head, a not-quite-right mix of blue, white and
black. The head, backpack, shoulderpads and feet are white plastic. The
wheels, upper arms, shoulder roots, butt, thighs, knees, and a backpack strut
are black plastic. Torso front, forearms, and boots are medium blue plastic
with a faint metalswirl.
As noted, the helmet is splapped with blue paint (so-so match to the
blue plastic), and then has a silver face, bright blue eyes, and yellow crest
front painted over that. The shins are painted white, a bit see-through in
places. There's also medium blue on the bits of the front fender that stick
out over the wheels, and bright blue headlights. No paint at all on the
torso, just the Autobot code circle sticker. I mean, none of the Hasbro toys
are going to be show accurate, but leaving the torso bereft of paint or any
color variation at all is annoying even by Hasbro standards. I ended up
putting a lot of work into adding paint to this one, in both modes.
Head turns, waist does not. Ball joint shoulders, elbows, hips. The
knees are hinged, but big gaps open up when you bend them. Hands can hold
5mm pegs, and there's a lot of 3mm peg holes around the toy for attaching
energy armor bits.

Accessories: Light clear blue. Unlike most, the chestplate doesn't have
hinged face armor, it's all one solid piece and gives Strongarm a vaguely
Gundammy look. As usual, though, it doesn't really look like anything when
attached to the weapon, just sort of sitting on the handle. There's armor
bits for the shins and forearms, and while they're pretty obviously pieces of
Sawtooth shell, they look decent. Finally, there's a "that's not a knife,
THAT'S a knife" sort of survival knife that lengthens the center tine of
Sawtooth's trident mode.
Note, when putting the armor on Sawtooth, it's best to put the head
pieces on first, then the wing pieces.

Transformation: It's very difficult to get the legs tucked into place in
truck mode without popping at least one off. Because of all the stuff that
has to connect simultaneously, no matter what you do first it will make later
steps awkward and likely to pop a hip joint.

Vehicle Mode: Again, the mold is very good, quite close to the show
model. And the paint or lack thereof just sinks it.
3.5" (9cm) long and just depressingly badly colored. Only the
windshield is painted (black), the side and rear windows are left white. No
paint on the grille or front bumper except for a sloppy red splotch for the
molded Autobot symbol in the middle. The lightbar has bright red on one side
and bright blue on the other. No paint on the hood. Seriously, I normally
cut Hasbro a lot of slack on paint apps, but this is just horrible. One or
two more paint apps would have brought it up to at least "okay for Hasbro"
levels. And the ones it does have are sloppy.

Mini-Con: Sawtooth is basically a sea monster. Like, roughly
manta-shaped in general, but with arms and legs and a HUGE toothy maw
reminiscent of a Coelacanth face. It also has a pair of hilts sticking out
the back, under the tail. The wings seem to have been snapped into place,
but are not removable with any reasonable amount of force.
2.75" (7cm) long and 2.25" (5.5cm) wide, the body is at an angle so the
tip of the tail ends up about 2" (5cm) above the tabletop. Most of the toy
is the same faintly metalswirl medium blue used on Strongarm. The legs, the
hilts (which include a bit that sticks up through the top of the head as a
fin) and the internal gears are a desaturated light blue. The jaws/teeth are
painted silver, the eyes are bright blue. The Autobot circle sticker is on
the left wing.
It actually has articulation! The arms are on swivels that let them
swing inward and outward in the plane parallel to the wings. The legs are on
ratchets that move 90 degrees at a time, plus gears that smoothly swing them
at the same time as each other while transforming. Mine was mis-assembled so
that the legs don't sit on the same tooth of the internal gearing, so one leg
is always slightly ahead of the other.
Pulling the tail and hilts apart unfolde Sawtooth into its trident
mode. It actually has two hilts, one behind the other. The front one is
standard 5mm peg with a crossguard. The back one steps down from 5mm to 4mm
to 2.5mm, presumably to make it easier to slide into a fist. Holding by this
one gives a slightly better visual balance for what's theoretically a pole
weapon. (It's more of a trident-style assegai.) The back hilt is on a
separate hinge so it can be used to hold the trident in a thrusting fashion,
but the tiered peg means it can't plug into Strongarm's roof peghole. This
seems to be where the package art comes from: if you fold the legs back and
point the main hilt forwards, it looks kind of like a gun barrel. Add in
some serious porportion mangling and paint it green, and you get the package
art.
The app game rates it at about 6/10 Attack and 7/10 Health.

Overall: The only thing that keeps this from being the least impressive
Strongarm toy is the existence of the One-Step and Tiny Titans toys, and
that's damning with faint praise. Most of my complaints are color-based, but
the finicky transformation doesn't help either. Sawtooth, on the other hand,
is one of the best Mini-Cons and other than the robot chest/faceplate piece
his accessories work well on him in both modes. Kinda glad I got this on
insta-clearance, because I really feel like I mostly bought it for the
Mini-Con.



AUTOBOT: SIDESWIPE
MINI-CON: WINDSTRIKE
Assortment: B7677
Altmode: Sports Car; Sword
Transformation Difficulty: 6 steps; 1 step
Previous Name Use: Yes; None
Previous Mold Use: PRiD; None
Weapon: Windstrike is Sideswipe's weapons
Function: Warrior; Weaponizer
Motto: "Wait, this was supposed to be camouflage?"

Oddly, while this is basically the Alpine Strike Sideswipe color scheme
(aka Not Red Alert, Honest), they just call it Sideswipe on the package. The
app game calls it "Battlepack Alpine Swideswipe," however.

Packaging: Six ties on Sideswipe, two on Windstrike, two on each of the
blade accessories, one on each of the other six accessories.
The package art shows a sword that looks almost nothing like Windstrike,
it's basically his chest and shoulders as a hilt on an otherwise unrelated
blue-bladed sword. Between this and Strongarm, I wonder if the artists even
saw the toy prototypes.

Color Swaps: Red becomes white, black stays black.

Paint Apps: In robot mode, bright red paint on the head, the pelvis
front, and the upper facings of the forearms. It chips easily on the head.
The face is silver, the eyes blue. Code circle on the chest, just like in
the original.
In car mode, there's more bright red on the doors. The front and side
windows are bright blue, as are the headlights. Well, part of the side
windows. The part on the forearms isn't painted. There's also nothing on
the hood or the rear section, making for a pretty boring color scheme. Just
white with blue windows, partly red doors, and the feet on the roof.

Mold Changes: None I can find, meaning that the two Sideswipes can share
accessories.

Accessories: Clear yellow-orange. There's two large blades that can be
used as melee weapons or (in theory, but not in practice on my copy) peg onto
Sideswipe's back as wings. There's attachments for arms and legs that have
Sideswipe's flat sawblade pattern, and a chestplate with fold-up helmet
mask.
Windstrike can theoretically wear all the bits in robot mode, but most
of them just sort of pile up on his back and barely hold on, plus the mask
has to be folded down as it won't fit around his head. They add up to making
his sword mode bigger and more jagged, when they stay on. Which, for the
shin pieces, is not very well. Really, only the arm pieces stay on well and
look good in both modes. The main problem is that the shin pieces peg into
slots formed by the blades snapping together, and they don't stay together
well enough for the pegs to be held firmly.
Unlike the Decepticon Hunters waves, the accessories don't combine into
anything on their own.

Mini-Con: Windstrike is a little blue bot with a vaguely oriental theme
to his armor, which would make him an appropriate partner for Drift. The
sword hilt piece sticks up behind the head, and the figure is 2.25" (5.5cm)
tall to the top of the hilt. A little shorter at the head. Mostly made of
bright blue plastic, with the hilt, feet, and an internal strut being black
plastic. The backpack blade is blue plastic, but heavily painted. The
faction symbol code circle is on the center of the chest.
In robot mode, the face is painted silver with the eyes left unpainted,
and that's basically it. The blade of the sword is painted yellow, and the
lower section that connects to the black strut is painted black with a good
match to the plastic.
Robot mode is a brick with a 5mm peg on the back. Transformation
involves folding the blade down, bending the toes down, then grabbing the
torso and blade and pushing them together. Not really one step, package
claims notwithstanding.
Sword mode is more like a giant hilt shaped like a headless robot, with
a short blade stuck in the feet. It's 3.5" (9cm) long, with a slightly
narrow almost-5mm peg hilt and a stepped 4mm/5mm peg on the back. The blade
itself has an oval hole through it that's a little more than 5mm wide, to go
around the back peg.
Adding the accessories increases the total sword length to 4.5" (11cm),
although it's also almost half that wide, for a sort of giant triangle sword
effect.
Sword mode cannot attach to Sidewinder's vehicle mode, making this wave
oh-for-two on that feature. In order for the blade to be able to fold over
the back peg, the back peg narrows to only 4mm at the end, and the 4mm wide
part is long enough that the 5mm wide part can't make it into the roof
socket. Which makes the back peg almost useless for Swideswipe, since
holding that peg in his hand isn't very impressive.
App game rates it at about 7/10 Attack and 8/10 Health.

Other Notes: I can't helpt but think Windstrike was originally intended
to pair up with a Battlepack Drift, between the oriental motifs and the fact
it doesn't really seem to work well with Sideswipe. Yeah, the accessories at
the very least had the helmet designed for Sideswipe, but the rest could have
been made to work on a new Drift (and the blades' back connectors look like
they were intended for something slightly different).

Overall: Bland redeco of an okay figure, new Mini-Con has several "why
did they do that?" design elements and doesn't seem to have been intended for
this figure at all. The accessories are pretty bad with the Mini-Con, so-so
for Sideswipe. Unless you really want a sword-Weaponizer for some other
figure, this one is skippable.


Dave Van Domelen, now to open Fortress Maximus. And keep painting
Strongarm. (Check http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/BPstrongarm1.JPG and
http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/BPstrongarm2.JPG after, say, July 14 2016 or
so to see the results.)