Dave's Titans Return Rant: Voyager Blitzwing

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Transformers Titans Return Rant: Voyager Wave 5

Blitzwing with Decepticon Hazard (Megatron retool)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/VBlitzwing2

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/VRMegatron - Megatron mold

Yeah, Blitzwing 2, this is the second Voyager class Blitzwing in my
Generations directory, the previous being part of the Thrilling 30 lineup.
But now we have all the Decepticon Triple-Changers as Voyager Titans Return
figures, so nice consistency (previously Octane/Tankor was only Deluxe, for
instance).


CAPSULE

$25-30 price point.

Blitzwing with Decepticon Hazard: Original mold was mildly recommended,
in part because it felt like a bad fit for Megatron. Unfortunately, in some
ways it looks better on Megatron due to his more uniform color scheme, and
quality control issues are a significant problem here. Mildly recommended.


RANT

Packaging: Same as Octone. As with Octone, the instructions are higher
contrast than previous waves of Titans Return. The purple on the "active
bit" tends to make it blend into the dark gray background, though.
Cosells are Ramhorn, Misfire, Octone, and Sky Shadow.


DECEPTICON: BLITZWING
Assortment: C2397
Titan Master: Decepticon Hazard
Altmodes: Tank, Jet
Transformation Difficulty: 19 steps (Megatron listed 16)
Previous Name Use: G1, TFA, Gen
Previous Mold Use: Gen
Titan Master Ability: Self-Destruct Command
Weapons: Electron Scimitar, Gyro-Blaster rifle
Function: Ground and Air Commander
Motto:

BLITZWING has one thing on his mind - destruction. DECEPTICON HAZARD
gives BLITZWING the ability to take over the processors of another bot, and
program them to cataclysmically self-destruct.

B: STR 8 SPD 9 INT 5 FRB 7
T: STR +4 SPD +1 INT +3 FRB +3

Pretty overpowered Titan Master ability, unless it takes a while and a
lot of concentration.

Packaging: Seven ties on the robot, plus a rubber band to keep the head
on. Two ties on the sword, one on the rifle. Packaged with the turret down
against the thighs and the wings folded flat in order to fit better in the
box.

Color Swaps: Most of Megatron is light gray, naturally those were
multiple sprues and got broken up here. The red all becomes dark gray, the
clear plastic is now clear colorless, black becomes Decepticon Purple. The
slightly darker light gray also becomes Decepticon Purple. Also Decepticon
Purple are the cannon, both weapons, the pop-up bits on the sides of the
head, the chestplate and abdomen flanks. The shoulders (including their
hinge for transformation), the forearms, the turret, the toes, and all of the
Titan Master parts that aren't dark gray (including the faceplate) are light
tan. The remaining light gray parts are a slightly different light gray.

Paint Apps (and stickers): The faceplate is dipped in bright yellow,
with purple paint on the face, and red on the goggles and helmet crest. The
red paint is also used on details on the top of the chestplate, and yellow is
on the bits flanking the cockpit-back-end detail on the chest (it's not a
fake cockpit detail, it's the aerodynamic trail behind the cockpit, and is
actually that in jet mode). There's red and silver trapezoid stickers on the
centers of the pecs, and a purple and silver sticker Decepticon symbol in the
center of the sternum. There's light gray paint (good match) on the abdomen
flanks. Light tan paint is on the kneepads, as well as on the calf panels
of the boots (which become the tank front deck). The treads on the arms are
painted dark gray (very good match to the plastic). The fists are painted a
bit sloppily purple. No paint on the Titan Master aside from the faceplate.
Jet mode adds light gray paint on the nosecone, purple framing on the
cockpit window, and foil stickers on the wings that are already curling at
the edges after a couple of transformation. The chest details look decent on
the top of the fuselage. Tank mode has way too much of the wing sticker
stuff visible, and only really adds one sticker, a Decepticon symbol on the
clear canopy of the turret.

Mold Changes: New faceplate (and yes, there's Shapeways faceplates to
get the cold and crazy faces, plus a more Ahnuld-y hot face), new chestplate,
and interestingly the pop up pieces that flank the head are new. The seat
gun is the same mold as on Megatron, but the cannon is replaced by a
G1-accurate sword. As a result, the cannon barrel attached to the turret is
now longer, since it's no longer just a stub for attaching something else
to.

Other Notes: The new cannon barrel can be pulled off and stuck on the
end of the seat gun. The instructions don't show how to store the weapons in
tank mode, but do show them pegged onto the forearms, which is pretty much
where they store in tank mode. Jet mode shows where the seat gun goes, but
not the sword. The best place I could find for the sword is under the nose,
although putting in one of the fists is less obvious.
The sword has two rectangular peg holes in the hilt crosspiece that look
like they're supposed to go on the two tabs under the barrel of the seat gun,
but they don't quite fit. Similarly, the rectangular tab on the opposite
side of the crosspiece looks like it should fit into a slot in the cannon
barrel root, but it's too big. It's as if someone sketched out the basics of
combining all the weapons, but then the final designer didn't understand what
the details were for and didn't make sure things would fit.
While the sea of gray gave at least some illusion of consistency to the
vehicle modes, the contrasting tan and purple are pretty striking, and the
tank's rear half is blatantly non-tank now. The jet is more unified, as the
tan stuff is mostly on the underside or "hidden" by the wings. (Suggestion:
tan stickers for the wings rather than silver, a little tan accent on the jet
would look okay and the tank would be a little less disjointed.)
Neither vehicle mode holds together as well as I'd like, and the wings
kept falling apart during transformation. I figure on leaving it in robot
mode most of the time anyway, though. Also, while the instructions stick
with folding the wings up as on Megatron in robot mode, if you want a more
G1-style robot mode, the wings should be out to the sides. The very short
slat at the root of each wing lets you set the rest of the wing back far
enough to be less of an obstruction while retaining most of the wingspan.

Overall: It has no critical desogn flaws like the T30 Blitzwing did, but
there's something of a QC crapshoot on the vehicle modes holding together
well at all.


Dave Van Domelen, kinda hoped his TR Arcee would have shipped by now,
but apparently TRU decided to accept pre-orders before they had a guarantee
of actual stock.