Dave's Generations Rant: FoC Deluxe Wave 1

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Transformers Fall of Cybertron Rant: Deluxe Wave 1

Optimus Prime (Cybertronian Truck)
Autobot Jazz (Cybertronian Racer)
Shockwave (Cybertronian Mobile Artillery)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/DeluxeF1

Where the first spate of Generations was a mix of various concepts (some
War for Cybertron, some Neo-G1, some movieverse-redeco), this set seems to be
entirely based on Fall of Cybertron (although it's possible there will be
concept drift later). Additionally, they're going to expand into Voyagers
and combiners this time around.
Fall of Cybertron is the sequel to War for Cybertron, so we're looking
at more Cybertronian modes.
The price point for Deluxes has been adjusted upwards again to $15 when
new (compared to $12-13 for TF Prime or DOTM), but expect the usual decay
rate with a few dollars off by the holiday shopping season. This first wave
has Shockwave as the shortpack, since they're still doing the usual 8 Deluxes
to a case and can't make 'em even.


CAPSULES

Optimus Prime: Pretty good robot mode, reasonably different
transformation for a TruckPrime, almost chibi vehicle mode. A very minor
kibble issue in robot mode. Recommended.
Autobot Jazz: Kinda awkwardly proportioned in robot mode, finicky
transformation, okay vehicle mode. Mildly recommended.
Shockwave: Good in both modes, although the vehicle mode is something of
a fiat (not a Fiat TM, I mean the "because we say it's a vehicle" kind of
fiat). My favorite of the trio. Recommended a little more than Optimus.

RANTS

Packaging: A blister card pack with an irregular blister and various
truncations and cut-outs on the card. The cards are 12" (30cm) tall and 7.5"
(19cm) wide with the upper right corner missing and the lower left trimmed to
follow the lines of the blister. The blisters have grill/heatsink bars on
the upper left and right side of the top, with a curving down on the left of
the top. There's a molded space for the faction symbol in the lower left,
with the shape slightly different for Autobots and Decepticons (with the card
edge following suit). The blister is 6.25" (16cm) tall at the highest and
equally wide at its widest, plus 2.5" (6.5cm) deep.
The card front design is meant to evoke G1 packaging, with a red grid
over dark red. They're dominated by full body art of the robot mode, with
the head in the upper left and the left arm extended into the upper right
corner. The card is white in the bottom third, with an energy border of
white and gray Kirby Dots covering the robot's lower legs. The faction name
is on the card in the lower right border. The logo under the left arm is a
simple metal-colored Transformers font split into TRANS and FORMERS, with a
smaller "GENERATIONS" above the "MERS" part.
The toy is in robot mode, with weapon on the left side. The card insert
shows the faction symbol on the left, art of the vehicle mode on the right,
and the character name over the Fall of Cybertron logo between them. The
very lower left of the card insert has the transformation difficulty (on a
scale from 0 to 3), and the underside flap has a co-sell of the other two in
the wave. A fold up flap on the left side has the character name, and the
one on the right has the series, number, a small inset of the robot art, and
the left half of a large faction symbol.
The back of the card has the logos across the top, the bio in the upper
left, and the middle dominated by photos of both modes. The techspecs across
the bottom are a dot-and-line graph, but not obscured in the G1 style.
Inside, the instructions are folded up loose between the trays, inside
the card insert. The pictures are of the "grayscale photo with faction color
highlighting" variety. The toys are held in with rattan strings.

Size Note: In general, the Deluxes are a little smaller this time
around, and they've changed to a less dense grade of plastic. Some of this
is doubtless an attempt to keep from having to increase the price even more,
but I suspect part of the changes come from a deliberate attempt to reverse
the recent trend of over-complex transformations and make the toys more
friendly to a younger audience. Jazz is still pretty complex, but trying
isn't always the same as succeeding. ;)


AUTOBOT: OPTIMUS PRIME
Series: 01
Number: 001
Altmode: Cybertronian Truck
Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (2)
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
Weapon: Ion Cannon
Function: Autobot Commander
Motto: "Sometimes you have to give up what you love, to save it."

Confronted with the inevitable decline of his homeworld into a long
period of frozen, powerless hibernation, OPTIMUS PRIME faces a terrible
choice: Stay and fight to the finish, only to fall into stasis along side his
world; or evacuate, and hope the DECEPTICONS pursue him into space so that
the planet has time to heal.

STR 10 INT 8 SPD 7 END 10 RNK 10 COUR 10 FRB 9 SKL 8 Avg 9

Packaging: Four strings hold the robot mode into the blister, one holds
the ion cannon. The smokestacks are pointed up, but according to the
instructions should be folded back for this mode.
The capitalization of "Stay" and the weird use of the semicolon are in
the original.

Robot Mode: Recognizably an Optimus Prime, both in color and general
design (two wheels on each boot, smokestacks on shoulders sort of,
window-like designs and grille on torso, etc). It uses the tiny head/big
feet trick to given the illusion of size despite being a fairly small toy,
it'd probably go will with the old Scout class in terms of scale. As noted
above, the smokestacks are supposed to be folded back, but you might prefer
the looks of having them pointed up...it makes the backs of the shoulders
look more hollow and looks a little weird if the arms are lifted to the
sides, but it does increase the "that's Prime" factor. About the only kibble
problem is that the bumper halves on the forearms don't lock down.
5" (13cm) tall at the head, in the traditional mix of deep red,
ultramarine blue and silvery gray. The boots, feet and head are ultramarine
blue plastic, and there's no clear lightpiping. The torso, shoulders, upper
arms and forearms are deep red plastic. The wheels on the boots and forearms
(on the inner sides of the forearms, unusually) are dark gray plastic, while
the rifle is a darker and slightly metallic gray plastic. The rest of the
toy is medium-light gray slightly metallic plastic, but there's two faintly
different shades of it (might be intentional, might have been an attempt to
match colors between slippery joint plastic and stronger structural plastic
that didn't quite make it). The darker of the grays can be found in the
collar area, the rear pelvis (which includes the hip ball parts), the hip
sockets and the ankle struts. The lighter gray is used for the fists,
smokestacks, abdomen grille, bumper kibble, pelvis front and thighs.
The not-really-window details on the chest are painted gloss black, and
the eyes are painted bright blue. All of the remaining paint apps are
gunmetal silver: faceplate, forehead crest, not-actually-rooflights, upper
arms, Autobot symbols on the shoulders, kneecap and shin detailing, wheel
hubs.
The gun is like a pistol version of his classic rifle, with the
truncated triangle stock chunk directly over the grip. It's a single
unpainted piece of plastic 2.25" (6cm) long, with a 5mm peg at the rear and
another one on top of the triangle pointed slightly back (for vehicle mode
attachment). The muzzle opening is 3mm in diameter, so you could plug a
battle blade or something into it as a barrel-plug bayonet. The hands can
hold 5mm pegs, and the top barrel of each smokestack can also hold a 5mm
peg. There's a peg hole in the center of the back, and one on each forearm,
but Prime's own rifle doesn't really look good anywhere but in his hands.
Oh, and there's peg holes in the bottoms of the feet for vehicle mode, but
you could use it to have him surf on a jet that has a peg on its top, or
something.
Other than those bumper pieces on the forearms, stability is very good
and everything snaps together firmly, The neck and waist are both ball
joints set mainly to turn and lean back. The shoulders are ball joints,
although the blockiness of the shoulders keeps you from lifting the arms more
than about 50 degrees to the side. Upper arm swivels, hinge elbows, swivel
wrists. The hips are ball joints with swivels right below, and the knees are
hinged (but don't look very good if you bend them more than about 30
degrees). The ankles are hinged structs with ball joints at the bottom,
although the bulk of the boots limits how much you can get out of that system.

Transformation: A bit simpler than the War for Cybertron version, but
not quite trivial. A flap on the back unsnaps so that the shoulder roots can
swing down and automaticaly tuck the head into the chest. Then fold that
flap over the hole. The arms swivel around and bend back so that the front
wheels end up on the outside, then turn the fists around and join the forearm
kibble bits as the bumper.
For the lower body, fold the feet up onto the shins and pull the lower
torso back as far as it can go. Then the boots fold up and spurs on the
ankle joints fit into tabs into the lower back. This foldover is why the
knees are a little low in robot mode. Guiding all the tabs into place is a
bit tricky at first, but it's easy enough to get the hang of it.

Vehicle Mode: Actually not much at all like the War for Cybertron
vehicle mode, it's more reminiscent of the lines of War Within Grimlock than
WfC Optimus. Chunkier and with a more angular look that suggests war
armoring (as opposed to the curved lines and aerodynamics of WfC Optimus),
the two banks of three smokestacks are farther forward and look more like
smoke canister dispensers. The fake windows are more obvious here, but still
look more like decoration than actual windows. What it does share with the
WfC version, though, is that it doesn't really look designed to pull a
trailer. It's more of a battle van than a semitractor. And in some ways it
reminds me of those chibi tank games online. BOPPERtimus Prime?
A mere 3.75" (9.5cm) long and 2.75" (7cm) wide, it has the usual Optimus
look of red cab, blue rear and gray trim. About the only bit revealed here
is an armor plate of the darker medium gray plastic at the back center of the
cab.
The peg holes on the underside of the feet end up in the back of the
truck now, and it's here that the weapon is meant to be attached using the
topside peg (so it's upside down). The boot side peg holes are now on the
side rear, for additional weapon attachment. There's no center-line peg
hole, so if you want weapon symmetry you'll need to buy two copies and have
one Optimus use both guns.
The middle pair of wheels doesn't always touch down on the surface, but
that might be a result of having not *quite* gotten things properly aligned
during transformation. Since the bumper drops down to only a couple of
millimeters above the surface, this is a lowrider truck rather than the
off-roader that the rest of the toy's lines might suggest.

Overall: A competent toy. The bumper arms are only a minor problem, and
the feet in vehicle mode are a little obtrusive, but it does a good job
overall of being a Cybertronian Optimus Prime. The size might turn people
off, though, especially if considered for purchase during the $15 phase of
retail. If so, you might want to wait for the inevitable December sales...
it's not like you'll have trouble finding Optimus Prime, of all toys.


AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT JAZZ
Series: 01
Number: 002
Altmode: Cybertronian Racer
Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (2)
Previous Name Use: Movie1, Universe, Titanium, TF:A for full "Autobot Jazz"
Previous Mold Use: None
Weapon: Blaster Pistol
Function: Special Operations Commander
Motto: "No plan survives contact with the enemy, but no enemy survives
contact with me."

AUTOBOT JAZZ is gifted with a flair for flexible thinking and
improvisation, making him the ideal special operations commander for the
AUTOBOTS. OPTIMUS PRIME entrusts him with the most sensitive missions,
counting on his keen mind and natural leadership to accomplish even the most
dangerous objectives, no matter what.

STR 6 INT 8 SPD 8 END 6 RNK 8 COUR 8 FRB 5 SKL 8 Avg 7.125

Packaging: Five strings on the robot, the pistol is held just by the
blister.

Robot Mode: While Optimus looks like an oversized Scout, Jazz looks like
a Deluxe, albeit one that's a bit oddly proportioned and has some gaps in
it. It does seem to match the game model quite well (aside from the chest
gap), but the legs just feel too short and skinny, like a large Scout's legs
on a regular Deluxe. The head is an odd mix of G1-style and a more Bayformer
aesthetic, as while it has a proper face, there's a few too many seams in
it. And the helmet is metallic blue rather than black, a detail I expect a
lot of fans will fix with a little paint...it looks nice enough, but Jazz
should have a black helmet, yes? It's not helped by the fact that the
lightpiped visor looks black under normal lighting. Oh, and while it does
hit the game model pretty well, the design does have to cheat. The front
wheels are hidden (mostly) behind panels, and there's fake front wheels built
into the ankles. The illusion is a bit marred by the fact the fake wheels
lack the red lines adorning the real wheels.
5" (13cm) tall at the head, it's mostly white and metallic blue with
some gray and a tiny bit of red. Most of the toy is white plastic, including
the head, but metallic blue plastic is found at almost every joint. The
collar area, shoulder cores, upper arms, hands, hip sockets, knee cores and
some transformation hinges on the torso are metallic blue plastic. There's
also some metallic blue plastic in a purely decorative role, making up the
various guns and sensors that take the place of headlights and radiator
grille in the chest. The wheels and feet (including the fake wheels in the
ankles) plus the pistol are made of medium-dark gray plastic. The
lightpiping is medium clear blue, but kinda foggy, which blocks light and
makes the visor look too dark. This is definitely a case where I'd support
factory paint over the lightpiping. (As an aside, about half the time when I
try to type lightpiping, it comes out as lightpoping, which strikes me as a
rather surreal feature for a toy to have.)
There's a lot of metallic blue paint, shinier than the plastic but
otherwise a pretty good match: helmet, kneecaps, "spats" forearms, and a bit
on the chest center. The feet have some white paint on the toes and heels,
which is a bit brighter than the white plastic. There's a red Autobot symbol
on the center of the chest, and red lines on the real wheels. The face is
silver. There's some other paint apps on the backpack, but I'll cover those
in the vehicle section.
The head is a ball joint with the ball part at the bottom of the neck
stalk unlike the usual socket in the base of the head. The waist does not
move. The shoulders are a bit odd, with the blue plastic core being on a
somewhat limited ball joint, but the outer white plastic part hinged to let
the arms lift to the sides all the way. It does have to snap past an
obstruction, first, though. Upper arm swivels, ratcheting hinge elbows, ball
joint wrist. The hips are ball joints with a swivel right below the ball,
but this swivel only has about twenty degrees of motion. There's another
swivel with full range of motion just above the knee, and the knee is a
ratchet hinge. The ankle is a ratchet that uses the fake wheel as a turning
part. The ankle ratchet is VERY stiff, and can only let the foot point down,
not up.
The pistol is only 1.5" (4cm) long, a single piece of unpainted gray
plastic. It does look reasonably like Jazz's G1 gun, on a smaller scale and
not chrome. The grip is a 5mm peg, and there's a 3mm hole through the main
body, so you can mount a Cyberverse weapon on either side. Jazz's hands are
the only place in this mode that can hold 5mm pegs, but the holes on either
side of each knee are 3mm. I suppose if you just got a 3mm rod a centimeter
or so long, you could use it to let him holster the pistol on his kneecap.

Transformation: Optimus may have a simplified transformation scheme, but
Jazz is a lot more evocative of the War for Cybertron shellformers, with
loads of panels that have to snap into the right place.
Unclipping the back and flipping it up the right way transforms most of
the vehicle top right away, automorphing the head away. The arms are
similarly simple to transform in principle, folding back and connecting
panels to make the doors and rear wheels. Then fold the toes down and pull
the legs up between the arms, and fold the fists in to close it all.
At this point, it looks almost done, but unless you were really careful,
there will be a bunch of tabs not in their slots. Espectially tricky is the
way the shoulders tab onto the wheel-hiding panels, because you almost have
to overstress the plastic somewhere to get all the tabs into slots.
As with most shell-heavy transformations, getting back to robot mode is
pretty easy.

Vehicle Mode: Low-slung and sportscar-y, but clearly reworked for
combat. As mentioned earlier, there's gunbarrels sticking out from where the
headlights should be. There's big exhaust pipes along the rear of the roof,
and instead of a front window there's a big armor plate (reminiscent of G1
Cybertronian Jazz). Exposed tech greebles are visible many places on the
toy, and it looks pretty solid from top, front and sides. From the back,
though, it's a big gap with robot fists vainly trying to plug it. As a
general shape, if you take the Porsche body, scrape off the roof/windows part
(but not the spoiler) and then replace with a shape like an elongated New
Beetle top. Curiously, there's a tab on the underside of the spoiler that
looks like it's meant to let you connect something to it, such as the pistol,
but it doesn't fit anything in this mode. Probably just for stabilizing the
backpack a bit. Oh, and while it doesn't have doors molded on it per se, I
will refer to the doors as a location on the sides. :)
4.25" (11cm) long, a bit small for a Deluxe, but not quite down to Scout
size. The color scheme is mainly white with metallic blue stripes, some
gunmetal bits and an incongruous fake back window in black. A little bit of
metalflake blue plastic is visible in the headlight-guns, grille and some
round details at the rear of the doors (plus, of course, the fists in back).
The wheels are obviously visible, otherwise all the plastic is white.
Metallic blue paint is used for stripes along the sides, a stripe on the
spoiler, and the armor plate that takes the place of a windshield. The
exhaust pipes are painted gunmetal, and the fake rear window is gloss black.
The red Autobot symbol ends up in the hood ornament position.
There's a 5mm peg hole on the roof just behind the blue armor plate, and
one on each rear fender just ahead and above the wheels.

Overall: Gappy and panel-y in places, and I'm not in love with the
finickiness of the transformation. It's not a bad toy, per se, but not on
the same level as the other two in the wave. I can't even really recommend
it for customizing, given the tight fits of a lot of bits in vehicle mode
(although that hasn't stopped some people from customizing it already).


DECEPTICON: SHOCKWAVE
Series: 01
Number: 003
Altmode: Cybertronian Mobile Artillery
Transformation Difficulty: Intermediate (2)
Previous Name Use: G1, Cybertron, TF:A, DotM
Previous Mold Use: None
Weapon: Laser Cannon
Function: Strategist
Motto: "Your defeat was the only possible outcome."

SHOCKWAVE may appear to be loyal to MEGATRON, but in reality he serves
only one master - pure logic. Behind his emotionless face rests the mind of
a brilliant strategist and mathematician. He calculates constantly, and
enforces his solutions through the precise application of the vast power of
his laser cannon.

STR 8 INT 10 SPD 5 END 7 RNK 8 COUR 6 FRB 10 SKL 6 Avg 7.5

Packaging: Four strings on the robot, one on the combined weapon.

Robot Mode: At first glance, this definitely looks like an update of G1
Shockwave: hexagon head, the right chest shape, the spindly legs (they beefed
up his legs for the animation model, but the original toy had really skinny
legs), and there's even a gunhand option. The main departure is that he has
wings, which have a sort of dragon or bat motif, thanks to little clawlike
projections near where they join his shoulders. As some have pointed out,
it's like they spliced G1 Cyclonus's wings onto Shockwave, more or less.
Without accessories, he has two hands, but as I note later, the weapon can
turn either arm into a gunhand.
5.25" (13cm) tall, predominantly dark purple with bits of black,
gunmetal, and a sort of neon pink-purple. The forears, fists, toes and
collar area are black plastic. The lightpiped eye and chest window are clear
neon purple/pink plastic. A more rigid, glossier dark purple plastic is used
for most of the torso and the shin pieces, while a duller and more flexible
dark purple plastic is everything else. Gunmetal paint is used on the ears,
shins, calves, pelvis bottom and the wingtips. Neon pink/purple "Dark
Energon" paint is used on the kneecaps and some abdominal vents. A small
purple and silver Decepticon symbol is printed on the center of the abdomen.
While the lightpiping on the eye is good, there's no way to make the
chest light up...unless you push the head into the chest using the
transformation step, in which case the eye shines through the chest.
The head swivels, the waist does not turn. The shoulders are swivels at
their root with hinges inside the shoulderpads to let the arms lift to the
sides. The elbows are balljoints, and there's a transformation hinge in the
upper arm that I suppose can be used for some poses. The wrists bend inward
on transformation hinges. Ball joint hips, swivels just above the hinge
knees. The knees can bend 90 degees. The toes fold down for transformation,
but this isn't a useful point of articulation. Due to how the legs wrap
around the cannon for vehicle mode, the heels are a bit weirdly shaped, and
don't support as well as their length would suggest.
If you don't care for the wings, by the way, they can be folded down and
look more like a cape. I haven't pushed the joints too hard, but they don't
seem to be the sort you can pop out without damaging the toy...so if you
remove the wings, it's probably going to be a permanent change.

Weapon: They got pretty clever with this. It consists of two pieces: a
black tribarrel rifle, and a gunmetal-and-clear piece that fits over the
barrels, in a manner reminiscent of G1 Shockwave's gunhand options (but with
three rather than one). And while it can be held in Shockwave's hand like
any regular rifle, it's specifically designed to fit over either forearm once
the fist is folded away, letting you give Shockwave a proper gunhand or have
two regular hands, as you prefer. It does a pretty good job of looking like
just part of the arm, too.
The rifle piece is all black plastic (a couple of pieces pinned
together), 2.75" (7cm) long, with the three rifle barrels being about 1.5"
(3.5cm) long. There's a 5mm peg at the front end of the body (right behind
the barrels), plus a rectangular tab behind it inside the hollow body that
goes into a slot on the wrist for gunhand mode. Another tab at the very back
is intended for vehicle mode, going into a slot on the buttplate. Each
barrel has an iron sights tab on the outside, which is purely decorative
since there's really no way to sight along the side barrels. :)
The clear piece is made of clear violet plastic and is mostly covered in
gunmetal paint except for the front and some details near the back. It's
roughly like three 1" (2.5cm) long rectangular blocks attached in a
triangular formation, with a round aperture in the center. The whole thing
is about an inch across as well. There's a sights block on the top of one
block, and some flanges sticking out on the other two blocks that are meant
to go into slots in the robot legs for vehicle mode. It's designed to slip
over the three rifle barrels in exactly one configuration (one of the barrels
has a tab on the underside). The combined weapon is only a few millimeters
longer than the rifle piece on its own, and about a centimeter of the rifle
barrels themselves are still visible, so it doesn't look like a solid-chunk
weapon.
Unfortunately, the two pieces hold together pretty loosely on mine,
there's no snapping into place. Adding a layer of topcoat to the rifle
barrels might help. However, this does mean that the official way of storing
the weapon on the back isn't going to work very well, as the clear piece will
just fall off. Fortunately, there's an undocumented feature here: the sights
tab on top of the clear piece is about the same size as the tab used to
connect the gun to the buttplate for vehicle mode, so you can store it
separately in the small of the back, then plug the rifle part onto the
backpack as in the instructions. This also lets you stow the piece on the
figure if you want the gunhand to just be the rifle. If you don't like the
tight fit on this (the sights are a tiny bit too large), the sights can also
plug into the 5mm peg hole on the backpack, although this looks a little more
awkward.
Note, because of the fact the rectangular tab in the forearm is part of
the fist piece, it can be hard to get the rifle off the forearm. The usual
direction of trying to pull it off just makes the wrist turn and friction-
lock the tab even harder. So you have to rock it side to side a bit.

Transformation: While the basic idea is pretty simple (legs wrap around
cannon to mnake front end, forearms become thrusters in back, chest is
cockpit), the actual execution is rather more involved than I thought it'd be
at first look. Some of the elements are finicky/frustrating (like getting
the arms lined up just right), but I generally liked it. The only real
stability issue is that the barrel extension formed by the heel pieces
wrapped around the cannon doesn't want to stay completely together.
There is one bit of automorph here. The head locks down inside the
chest for vehicle mode, but when you get it back into robot mode the latch
that holds it in place is tripped and the head pops up on its own. (It's
possible to keep the head down in robot mode, but it's very lightly held.)

Vehicle Mode: Well, it's not a giant pistol, but is essentially a flying
cannon. Half the length of the vehicle is gun, it's like a hovering version
of mobile artillery or a tank destroyer (i.e. no turret, so the whole vehicle
has to turn, but you get to have a bigger gun than could be held in any
practical turret). In some ways it reminds me of the Lego Space Police space
limo (the one that comes with Brick Daddy aka Space Pimp), or the whole
"space gangster" motif seen in Silverhawks. It has a nice progression of
panels from the cannon back to the wings, although you have to remember to
swing the calf armor around to get this. And while the actual robot head is
now upside-down buried in the guts of the vehicle, there's a tiny molded
version of the head at the rear back that implies that the "real"
transformation doesn't involve flipping the chest over and is therefore
somewhat more boring. (Minor custom tip: paint the fake ears gunmetal.)
6.25" (16cm) long, it has about the same color balance as robot mode.
Black plastic ends up at the very back (thrusters), the very front (toes
become a sort of dual bayonet) and in the center (rifle piece). A bit more
gunmetal paint is exposed by rotating the calf armor panels, and Dark Energon
paint is used for the barrel extension at the front. The clear chest piece
is now the primary cockpit/sensor/whatever. I get the feeling that this
would have looked a little better if the black plastic were replaced with
gunmetal plastic, but they might have been worried about structural issues
with metallic colors in softer plastic.
All in all, it might be one of those "because we say so" altmodes, but
it looks pretty good. Menacing, all full of forward-swept angles around a
big gun. If Shockwave can't be a pistol, this is a good substitute.

Third Party Idea: Of course, it probably can be a pistol if you
want. With a little experimentation, I found it's possible to use the rifle's
peg and some creative shaping to make a grip piece that turns the hovertank
into a giant pistol. A third party company of the sort that makes
replacement heads and weapons and the like could make a pretty convincing
add-on that not only makes the vehicle into a gun, but also turns into some
sort of accessory for the robot mode.

My first attempt just used a cheap cap gun and some styrene bits to see
if it'd work at all: http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/shockgrip1.JPG
http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/shockgrip2.JPG

My second attempt was a bit more involved, attempting to look a little
more FoC'y and also turn into a shoulder cannon for robot mode. I'll
probably just make a webpage for it, but don't expect this link to be live
immediately: http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/shockgrip.html

Overall: Naturally, my favorite of the set is also the shortpacked one.
Pretty good in both modes, with an interesting transformation, this toy does
a good job of navigating the budget-imposed restrictions the line works under
and gives a good Deluxe-sized toy.


Dave Van Domelen, has Flamewar and some Bot Shots on deck. But first,
to finish the Shockwave grip.

[Dave Van Domelen]

http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/shockgrip.html is now live.

Dave Van Domelen, wonders how much plastic dust escaped the vacuum
cleaner and ended up in his food this week....