Dave's Cyber Battalion Rant: Shockwave, Sideswipe

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Transformers Cyber Battalion Rant - Wave 2

Shockwave (flying cannon)
Sideswipe (muscle car, retool of Prowl)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/Battalion2

Gonna be a bit terser on these. Suffice to say that the general nature
of the toys is very similar to wave 1, in terms of corners cut and clever
tricks to make them look more impressive from a distance or let them stand up
to rougher play.

http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/Battalion1 - Prowl mold


CAPSULES

$18-20 depending on the local Walgreens.

Shockwave: Very good G1-evocative robot mode, altmode feels like they
sort of gave up halfway though it. Still, if you want a G1-style robot
that's big enough to be impressive on the table but not Masterpiece
expensive, this is a good choice. Mildly recommended.

Sideswipe: While not a Lamborghini, it really does feel Sideswipe-y in
robot mode (specifically, the more aggro version in the G2 comics). The
vehicle mode is almost more related to Robots in Disguise (2015). Vehicle
mode is almost TOO solidly constructed. Prowl mode was mildly recommended, I
think this works a little better than that did unmodified, mildly recommended
whether or not you have Prowl.


RANTS

Packaging: Same as wave 1. Notable is the gap in assortment numbers
between Shockwave (E1168) and Sideswipe (E1171), indicating that the "never
released in the U.S." Starscream and Megatron go in that gap...which is
weird, since you'd think those two would have been E1168 and E1169. Ah well,
it's not like shipping order has ever made sense for Transformers.
As before, I made up the mottos.


DECEPTICON: SHOCKWAVE
Assortment: E1168
Altmode: Flying Cannon
Transformation Difficulty: 10 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Mad Scientist
Motto: "The only professional ethic that matters is a dedication to learning
from one's mistakes."

There's no limit to the evil this DECEPTICON scientist can create.

Packaging: 5 ties hold the figure to the tray. It was kinda slumped and
the chest had gotten out of alignment, but you an get away with that sort of
thing when there's no window.

Robot Mode: Okay, it's basically G1 Shockwave with a backpack and a
couple panels on the inside faces of the boots. The legs don't look like
they turn into a pistol grip (because they don't), and there's details that
the animation model omitted for simplicity, but it really does feel like an
honest effort was made to get it looking like it stepped out of the cartoon.
He has the warmer purple of the cartoon, although the light pinkish purple
parts from the animation model (chest, hand, gun-hand) are a deeper reddish
violet.
7" (18cm) tall, in violet, reddish violet, silvery gray, silver and a
bit of yellow. A slightly silvery light to medium gray plastic is used on
the upper arms, thighs, toes, and some internal bits in the chest. The right
hand, the left cannon hand, the collar area (basically the control tower of
the vehicle mode), the wingtips on the backpack, and some panels on the boots
are reddish violet plastic. The rest of the toy is violet plastic. There's
reddish-violet paint on the chest "window" thing and on the wrist cuffs,
decent match. The not-a-face is painted black with a yellow eye, and there's
yellow in the narrow vent under the center chest. The abdomen, "ears," vents
on top of the shoulders, and the boot cuffs are painted dark silver. Square
panels on the outer facings of the forearms are painted light metallic
purple, and a dark purple on silver Decepticon symbol is printed on the top
of the chest.
The head turns, the waist does not. Universal joint shoulders, hinge
elbows, universal joint hips, and the boots rotate along the long axis on
swivels at the knees. The ankles are hinges, but they're loose and the only
stable position leaves the legs leaning forwards slightly, which can be
compensated for by bending the hips the opposite way. So there's a bit of a
pelvic thrust, that really drives you emotionlessly logical. And insane.
The right hand can hold 5mm pegs. The aperture of the left arm cannon
is a little smaller than 5mm, but some of the narrower pegs (such as the
longer pegs on some combiner weapons) can fit in. There is a 3mm peg hole on
the back of the pelvis.
The torso is only loosely held in place, it doesn't take much force to
accidentally pop it around. But at least it is held, unlike in vehicle
mode.
Note, if you pop off the wingtips and swap them so that the nozzles
point down rather than up, it becomes a decent wingpack for the robot mode.
Yeah, it messes up the vehicle mode, but that's no great loss, sadly. The
bigger downside is that the wingtips don't quite mesh into place when stowed
if you swap them.

Transformation: The legs rotate at the knees, the feet fold inside the
shins, and it all snaps together. Panels from the instep sides of the boots
fold up over the thighs, a la Titans Return Sentinel Prime and Astrotrain. A
small landing skid flips down before you snap things together. The torso
rotates down and the head is swapped for a control tower sort of thing that
looks kind of like the head. The wings fold out...and then the arms just
sort of lift up behind the torso and point backwards, with the fist stowed
and the gun barrel bent forwards. They were doing pretty well, and then...
just gave up on the arms.
As noted, the torso doesn't really lock into place. The head piece does
have tabs on it which go into slots inside the torso, but on mine they're too
narrow and just act as stops rather than locking the command tower in place.
Similarly, there's tabs on the forearms that fit into slots on the upper arms
to guide the arms into the proper position, but they don't actually lock.
Legs are nicely solid, though.

Vehicle Mode: You know, they did such a great job on the legs, and a
decent job on the torso...and then the arms are just sort of pointed
backwards. I wonder if they deliberately flubbed that so that there
wouldn't be enough range of motion in the arms to fake a pistol grip?
So, it's basically a flying cannon, with the legs forming a credible
imitation of the G1 cannon barrel (with a little paint on the aperture, it
might even be better than the Legend class version from Combiner Wars). And
it has wings and a control section, even has a front landing skid. But it's
really hard to get past the arms just sticking back. It's as if they just
gave up. The backs of the upper arms have extensions from the shoulderpads
so that the bicep parts are covered up, but...meh. Almost looks better just
pointing the arms forwards and leaving the cannon out (they're snap-on and
the guns are symmetric, I suppose you could get a second copy of the toy and
replace the right hand with a cannon too). The arms are kinda sorts
thrusters, I guess, they just look bad in that role, especially with the gun
hand not so much hidden as just bent to be next to the forearm. There's
definite thruster cones on the wingtips.
8.5" (21.5cm) long with a wingspan of 7.5" (19cm), basically the same
colors as robot mode, but the gray is suppressed. The new control tower, the
wingtips, and the landing skid are reddish-violet plastic. The cuff paint
becomes barrel tip paint, and there's some reddish-violet paint on top of the
barrel just ahead of the knee swivels. There's no paint on the control tower
"face," but it does seem molded to look more like a targeting screen.
The 3mm peg (well, it's a bit loose for 3mm) is now on the underside, a
bit ahead of the center of mass, but not a serious problem for use of a
flight base. The center of the cannon front looks like it was intended to
have a 3mm peg hole formed by two halves meshed together, but the seam is too
wide to let an actual 3mm peg stay put.

Overall: Pity the poor gunformers, for they can never really get a good
altmode without sacrificing the iconic appearance of their robot mode.
Shockwave as gunship seems to be the most stable, but as this shows it's not
always a good gunship. Still, this is a good robot toy, and can play with
the big boys in that mode.


AUTOBOT: SIDESWIPE
Assortment: E1171
Altmode: Muscle Car
Transformation Difficulty: 8 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: Battalion
Function: Warrior
Motto: "No, that doesn't make me as bad as them. It just makes me the
winner."

This fast-talking AUTOBOT warrior is never afraid to break a few rules.

Note, this is a significant retool of Prowl. The head, forearms,
chest/hood, and toes are different. While this seems like not much, they're
also pretty salient parts and when combined with the changes in color it
helps camouflage their similarities a bit.

Packaging: 5 ties hold the robot to the inner tray. The box art is
basically G1's robot mode, with the Lambo altmode pieces and the hood aligned
vertically as a chest, as opposed to a horizontal hood on the actual toy.

Robot Mode: While the head is correct and the colors definitely say
Sideswipe, the fact that he has a different altmode is quite clear,
especially in the chest. Of course, it'd have been hard to take the Prowl
mold and make the chest fold down another 90 degrees. :)
About 7" (18cm) tall at the head, a little taller to the hood piece
behind the head. Predominantly red, black, and white...to the point that the
only things not in one of those colors are the silver face and the blue eyes.
Bright red plastic is used for the hood/chest, back/roof, forearms/doors, and
boots. White plastic is used for the thighs and the front of the torso core.
The shoulders, head, wheels, and hip joints are black plastic.
The pelvis front, fists, grille, airdam, and car windows are painted
black. The forearms and headlights are painted white, and a white outline
Autobot symbol is printed on the front of the hood/chest. The face is
painted silver with blue eyes.
Same articulation as Prowl.

Transformation: The same as Prowl, but something about the retooled toes
seems to make it a bit tighter. Getting it back into robot mode is tricky,
because the boots are SO fully locked in place as the rear of the car.
Definitely leave the legs for last, so you have room to work.

Vehicle Mode: A muscle car, it looks like the RiD Sideswipe's vehicle
mode if it had been left more stock and not pimped out for street racing.
The hood comes to a sharp edge in front, with the grille part angled
backwards and then the airdam jutting back out at the bottom. Like Prowl,
the looks are somewhat marred by having chunks of black behind the front
wheels.
7" (18cm) long, red and black with the white outline Autobot symbol at
the front. All of the windows are painted gloss black, the front end is as
noted for the robot chest.

Overall: I'm guessing the wheels are on the same sprue as the other
black parts, else it would have worked better to cast the shoulders in red
and paint more black. Still, it seems to require less tweaking than Prowl
did in order to look good in vehicle mode, and it looks fine in robot mode
as-is.


Dave Van Domelen, spent five hours or so over the weekend finishing the
restoration of dvandom.com.

[Irrellius Spamticon of the Potato People.]

On Sunday, May 6, 2018 at 4:20:09 PM UTC-5, Dave Van Domelen wrote:
> Dave's Transformers Cyber Battalion Rant - Wave 2
>
> Shockwave (flying cannon)
> Sideswipe (muscle car, retool of Prowl)
>
> Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/Battalion2
>
> Gonna be a bit terser on these. Suffice to say that the general nature
> of the toys is very similar to wave 1, in terms of corners cut and clever
> tricks to make them look more impressive from a distance or let them stand up
> to rougher play.
>
> http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/Battalion1 - Prowl mold
>
>
> CAPSULES
>
> $18-20 depending on the local Walgreens.
>
> Shockwave: Very good G1-evocative robot mode, altmode feels like they
> sort of gave up halfway though it. Still, if you want a G1-style robot
> that's big enough to be impressive on the table but not Masterpiece
> expensive, this is a good choice. Mildly recommended.
>
> Sideswipe: While not a Lamborghini, it really does feel Sideswipe-y in
> robot mode (specifically, the more aggro version in the G2 comics). The
> vehicle mode is almost more related to Robots in Disguise (2015). Vehicle
> mode is almost TOO solidly constructed. Prowl mode was mildly recommended, I
> think this works a little better than that did unmodified, mildly recommended
> whether or not you have Prowl.
>

Now I can't stop thinking how much better he would look in G deco, and I know we will never get one, so thanks...