Dave's TF Studio Series Rant: Core wave 9

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Transformers Studio Series Rant: Core wave 8

Decepticon Mohawk (motorcycle)
Decepticon Rumble (cargo block)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/Core9

Rumble is part of a "concept art" series that happened because several
characters were designed for the Bumblebee movie's Cybertron scene but never
got animated.


CAPSULES

$12 on HasbroPulse

Decepticon Mohawk: Pretty good bot with some character to it, involved
and only slightly frustrating transformation (some tabs and slots can be hard
to line up), good if weird motorcycle mode. Recommended.

Decepticon Rumble: Well, it's nice that they made this instead of
leaving the design in an archive no one would see, but it's not a very GOOD
design mechanically speaking, for all that it might be aesthetically pleasing
to some. Neutral.


RANTS

Packaging: Standard no-plastic small window boxes. As with previous
Core figures, they lack some of the features of other Studio Series
packaging: there's no identification number, no scene listing or bio note,
and no reusable backdrop (the inner tray has a scene, but it's punched
through with holes).
Rumble has a slight departure from standard in that his character art is
fully rendered on top but turns into wireframe by the time it gets to his
legs, as an homage to the "deleted scene" nature of the design. The Concept
Art figures were all thought up for the Cybertron scene early in the
Bumblebee movie, but not everyone made it to a full render stage.


DECEPTICON: DECEPTICON MOHAWK
Assortment: F8748
Altmode: Motorcycle
Transformation Difficulty: 13 steps
Previous Name Use: None
Previous Mold Use: None
Movie: The Last Knight
Scene: None listed

It was kinda weird that this guy didn't get a toy until now. Sure, he
only had a short time on screen, but he was distinctive. Then again, most of
Megatron's crew got no toys, this was the first movie that really leaned hard
into "disposable gimmick toys for the kids and only focus on the major proven
sellers for the better toys," for the movie line, as I recall, although the
movie lines had been trending that way from the start. Nitro Zeus and
Berzerker were the only new Decepticons to get toys, and technically
Berzerker was a tweak of a Dark of the Moon character, toy-wise.

Packaging: Five plastic ties hold the robot to the backdrop, and two
more secure his knife in the lower left corner.
The rendered art has him walking with a sort of, "Yeah, we bad," strut.
His backdrop is an abandoned auto repair shop in the ruins of the greater
Chicago area.

Robot Mode: A sort of cross between "motorcycle punk with a mohawk" and
a chameleon, with various splotches of spray paint. They seem to have opted
for a "clean" version of the mold, leaving out the various bits of bling
Mohawk adorned himself with in the movie. Between the reptilian elements and
the motorcycle altmode, I feel that this might have been inspired by
Iguanus. Despite being a rather skinny and gangly figure, it has lots of
good molded altmode details on top of the reptilian parts, and it's one of
the uncommon designs that actually makes the digitigrade Bayformer legs work
well. Claws are molded onto the backs of the hands in addition to the fins
along the outer edges of the forearms.
4" (10cm) tall to the top of the head fin (not *technically* a mohawk,
since it's not hair, and it's shaped more like a fin), mostly slightly
metallic gray with black wheels and some white and neon green spraypaint
splats. The wheels are black plastic, everything else is a sort of light
gunmetal gray plastic, although there's two distinct types, mostly
distinguishable under UV or sunlight. The lighter, and I suspect more
flexible, variety is used for the head fin, root struts of the wheel-chunk
shoulderpads, shoulder roots, upper arms, elbows, thighs, feet, and bowie
knife. The rest is a slightly darker gunmetal.
The paint situation is weird, because on top of the obvious spraypaint
(neon green, and white) and some bright red bits, there's also at least two
shades of paint that tend to blend into the underlying plastic at first
glance. There's a very pale gold used on the teeth, the drive chain on the
left shoulderpad, and some cylinders on either side of the front fork (right
shoulderpad) and the outer faces of the ankles that I think are shock
absorbers. There's also a gray-brown spatter on the torso front that I think
is supposed to be mud since the chest is on the underside of the motorcycle
mode. Matte black paint is used for the cones of the eyes and the handlebars
on the right shoulderpad, while springs on the front fork and the calves are
gloss black. The centers of the eyes are red, as are some rectangles (turn
signals?) on the front fork. White paint is used for the motorcycle
headlights, as well as for spray paint splatter on the left forearm. Neon
green spraypaint patterns are printed on the top of the head, the drive
chain, the right hand's top, and a slash across the chest.
The neck is...oops. The head is actually attached to a peg 4.6mm in
diameter that I suspect was supposed to have glue on it, although that would
keep it from turning, so maybe becoming headless was just an undocumented
feature? The root of the neck peg has a hinge to let it fold back for
transformation, and the top of the head is hinged so the mouth can open.
There is no waist joint. The shoulders are ball joints on the ends of hinged
struts, the elbows are a weird double joint with a hinge connecting to the
upper arm and a ball joint with the socket in the forearm. This lets them
bend double as well as have a very good range of motion. The hips are ball
joints, the "true" knees do not bend. As a digitigrade leg, the "backwards
knee" hinge is actually the ankle, while the ball joint that looks like an
ankle is really a toe joint. Despite the true knees being fused, there's
good range of motion here too.
The hands hold 3mm pegs, and there's a tab on the back of the pelvis
that goes into the big notch on the knife for storage. The knife's notch
isn't a full socket, though, and it doesn't stay on very strongly...this is
something that's very sensitive to mold tolerances and quality control.
Mohawk's only weapon is a big bowie knife with an 18mm long blade and a
3mm diameter peg grip, total length of 24mm. As noted above, there's a sort
of U-shaped bit on one side of the blade that provides a notch to go onto the
pelvis tab for storage. There's another tab on the left side of the chest
that becomes accessible in vehicle mode for knife storage.

Transformation: Tilt the head all the way back. Then swing the left
shoulderpad (rear wheel) up over where the head was, and the right pad down
over the butt. The shoulders shrug all the way up so that the holes in the
elbow hinge joints can go onto pegs on either side of the drive chain section
while tabs on the socket elbows go into slots just above those pegs.
Finally, swing the legs up and around so that tabs on either side of the fork
go into gaps in the thighs, and the feet peg together to be a sort of
motorcycle seat shape. If you did everything right, a tab on top of the
drive chain chunk goes into a slot on the underside of the combined feet.

Vehicle Mode: According to TFWiki, this is based on "but legally
distinct from" a Confederate Motorcycles 2016 P51 Combat Fighter motorcycle
(and that the company changed its name in 2017). And for the size, it does a
pretty good job of looking like a weird custom motorcycle, just the legs
kinda sticking out there and being obviously not-motorcycle parts...although
checking pictures of the P51, it doesn't look THAT different from the actual
motorcycle. With the knife stored it acts as a sort of kickstand, and the
somewhat weird shape of the robot feet makes sense now that they're halves of
the seat and rear fender. The front and rear wheels have different hubs: the
front has seven curving spokes, while the rear wheel has five straight
spokes. I presume that either this is a difference present on the P51 (if
not these specific shapes), or an indication that he's sort of bodged
together, repairing damage by salvaging stuff from other vehicles. Most of
the spraypaint is either interior in this mode or on the bottom facing, so it
looks more like a simple clean primer-gray motorcycle.
3.25" (about 8.5cm) long, it's roughly 1:24 to 1:28 scale, assuming the
"wheelbase" figure I find online is for "where the front wheel touches the
ground to where the rear wheel touches the ground). Basically, a human would
be about 2.5" to 3" tall at this scale, meaning Rumble is a little short for
Mohawk. Overwhelmingly gray with black wheels, the only significantly
visible paint comes from the black handlebars, white headlights, and the red
bits on the front forks (turn signals?).
It rolls along decently, skidding on the knife-kickstand, no real
connectors. The fists are partly blocked, while the hinge hole visible in
roughly the gascap position is smaller than 3mm. I suppose an old C-clip
accessory can wedge onto the handlebars if you have any sitting around. (I
keep the ones from a spare "Commander Class when that was the size of current
Core Class" Ironhide I got over a decade ago around for review purposes, and
the clip stays on the handlebar okay. The handlebars aren't 3mm rods, but
the slight nod at brake handles makes them thick enough in one direction to
work.

Overall: Pretty good, I was surprised. I wonder what we'd have gotten
if Mohawk had been part of the original toyline back in Lost Knight, I
suspect it would've been bigger but not necessarily better.


DECEPTICON: CONCEPT ART DECEPTICON RUMBLE
Assortment: F8749
Altmode: Cargo Block
Transformation Difficulty: 11 steps
Previous Name Use: None with "Concept Art" in it
Previous Mold Use: None
Movie: Bumblebee
Scene: None, because he didn't actually appear.

Okay everyone, time to dig out that half-decade old BB Soundwave, he has
a new chest filler!

Packaging: Four plastic ties hold the robot to the tray, and the guns
are in the lower left and right corners with two crossed ties holding each in
place. The backdrop is the same Cybertronian "under the overpass" scene used
in other BB toys, with art of a fleeing B-127 in vehicle mode and a somewhat
generic bot in shadowed silhouette.

Robot Mode: The art and package render really try to hide this, but he's
very short-legged and stumpy. Also, he has no hands, so the guns he comes
with can only attach to the back, nowhere else. The joints in his arms are
purely for transformation, no actual elbows. He has pounders for arms,
that's it. The head is closely modeled on the G1 design, but with no mouth
(which many would say is an improvement, forgetting that he can probably
still talk without a visible mouth). He can sort of ride Mohawk's altmode,
and is pretty close to being to-scale with a human rider for that little
punk. There's technically heel spurs as part of his mecha-bell-bottoms, but
they're not really long enough and the figure has to raise at least one arm
forwards or hunch over a bit to avoid falling over backwards.
2.25" (5.5cm) tall at the top of the head, a little bit taller at the
guns sticking up in back. Mostly dark blue and medium gunmetal with some
light blue, red, and yellow accents. Dark blue plastic is used for the
torso, upper arms, middle arms, pelvis, and thighs. Gunmetal gray plastic is
used for the head, pounder-hands, shins, feet, and guns.
There's gunmetal paint on the tops of the shoulders, as well as on the
outer faces of the calves (it's a darker shade than the plastic). I'm pretty
sure there's no gunmetal paint on the faceplate, but since the plastic
doesn't glow under UV it's hard to tell. There's also some gunmetal paint on
the sternum, the sideways-I shapes on his chest, and the inner part of the
abdomen hinge (mostly visible from behind, or when transformed). The visor
is (slightly sloppily) painted red, and there's tiny bits of red paint on the
collarbone area and the kneecaps. The collar front and much of the top
quarter of each arm is painted a light blue, while the center of the sternum
has a raised shape painted medium blue. There's thin yellow stripes around
the upper arm where the hinges don't break the line, a sort of U shape in
bright yellow on the pelvis, and yellow strips on the tips of the toes. The
striking faces of the piledrivers have light purple Decepticon symbols
printed on them, they're upside-down when the piledrivers face forwards.
The head is on a restricted ball joint, the waist is just a
transformation hinge that can bend forwards a bit and backwards a lot
(especially if you remove the guns from his back). The shoulder roots are
hinges that lift up, so Rumble can bash his own skull in, and swivels where
the struts meet the upper arms. Each arm has two snap-in transformation
hinges that go sideways and are not useful for articulation here. Pinned
universal joint hips, ball joint knees, and somewhat loose hinge ankles that
only point up and don't go below 90 degrees (flat feet). While the legs have
good articulation, the arms aren't quite long enough to get a decent
"pounding on the ground" pose that's stable and looks good.
The only connection points are 3mm sockets in his back to hold the two
guns. As noted earlier, he cannot actually hold the guns as weapons.
There's so much tech-greeble detail on the pounders that there isn't really a
good place to try to drill 3mm holes if you want to customize the figure into
being able to hold the guns, either.
The two guns are not modeled after the G1 wing-shape guns, they're more
like bundles of pipe with grips. The longer one has four asymmetrically
clustered barrels, none of which can accomodate a Fire Blast. It's 24mm long
with a 3mm grip peg near the back and a 3mm socket on the back face so it can
combine with the other gun. It has rectangular sockets on either side above
the grip that might fit snugly onto the tabs on the inner faces of the
robot's forearms, except for the big hinge blocking things. The shorter gun
(22mm long) looks more like a classic G1 ray gun, with coils around the
barrel and not-quite-3mm sockets on either side of the point where the grip
meets the body. It has a 5mm peg with a 3mm peg extending from its center,
indicating this is meant to be another "give it to Soundwave" weapon. The
barrel is a 3mm peg, which goes into the socket on the back of the other gun
to make a mini-rifle. Its 5mm peg means it doesn't sit flush to the robot
back and contributes more to the "fall over backwards" problem.
The combined rifle or carbine or whatever is 1.75" (42mm) long. The
weapon combination is not shown in the instructions or on the package, making
this an Undocumented Feature. I wonder if it's inspired by the antenna-gun
thing they gave Siege Soundwave. It doesn't look the same, but it has a
similar "bunch of rods stuck together" feel.

Transformation: The arms fold up and lift to flank the head, the figure
bends over 180 degrees at the waist, and then you spend a few minutes trying
to get the guns to peg properly between the feet (the tabs do not seat firmly
in the slots, so it takes both sides clamped down to hold the longer gun in
place). I suppose you can turn the head to hide the face, but the
instructions don't say to do so and it's not like this is a disguise mode.
It's literally just Rumble's contortionist act.

Altmode: Okay, it's a block, Rumble just sort of folded up to cram into
papa's chest. As with Ravage, there's no attempt to make it look like
anything else, such as a tape or even a crate (need BoxBot technology for
that trick). It does fit into BB Soundwave's chest quite smoothly without
being loose, although you still have to push it back out from behind. The
guns are tucked between the legs so the whole thing can go inside the chest,
unlike Ravage who has to leave part of his weapon outside. In fact, while
the guns are clearly intended in a "donor" role as well, they're kinda
important for stability of this mode.
A little under 1.5" (37mm or so) on its longest axis, and slightly under
an inch (23-24mm) in the other two dimensions. Same colors as robot mode,
with most of the gray plastic clumped together at one end. I suppose
technically it has a usable 3mm socket on the underside thanks to the stock
end of the longer gun, and you might be able to make use of the 3mm pegs in
limited situations...like mounting a Fire Blast on the long gun's grip for a
rocket-propelled chunk.

Overall: Kinda disappointingly small for the price point. At least the
86 series Rumble and Frenzy came with optional pounders that could be removed
to let them hold their guns. Props for backwards compatibility with a 5-6
year old toy, I suppose. They probably know that the main market for this is
people who already own that Soundwave. About the best thing I can say about
this is that in a line where some movie characters never even get toys
(Mohawk had to wait several years, and some of the other members of his gang
never got toys) it's nice to see some designs avoid oblivion entirely and get
toys.


Dave Van Domelen, not likely to get a Frenzy redeco.