Dave's Transformers Kingdom Rant: Core Class Soundwave and Dracodon

[Dave Van Domelen]

Dave's Transformers Kingdom Rant: Core Wave 3

Soundwave (Tapedeck)
Dracodon (Vertebreak redeco)

Permalink: https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/CoreK3

At least as of now, there is no fourth wave revealed.

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/CoreK1 - Vertebreak mold


CAPSULES

$10 price point.

Soundwave: While there's a number of small flaws or deficiencies in this
toy, it sparks joy. Strongly recommended.

Dracodon: Original mold was recommended, but this one being in bright
green is going to atract some and repulse others. Beast mode colors are a
little patchy, the colors in general feel kinda arbitrary. Mildly
recommended.


RANTS

Packaging: Same as previous two waves.


DECEPTICON: SOUNDWAVE
Assortment: WFC-K21
Altmode: Tapedeck
Transformation Difficulty: 8 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None

Packaging: Two ties on the robot, one tie each on the shoulder launcher
and rifle. The cassette is in the chest. The package art shows the cassette
being ejected, with Nemesis in the background.
The renders on the cardback and in the instructions show the word PLAY
embossed on the upper middle control button, but it's blank on the toy. The
gold dotted line bit at the top of the tape door is solid squares on the
cardback, but squared off backwards C shapes on the toy. Finally, the render
assumes that the tape door is lighter/clearer than in the actual toy.
I do have one of the Hot Soldiers versions of the character (the
Soundblaster black version), this official one is smaller while having pretty
much the same functionality as the Hot Soldiers toy. The cassette doesn't
transform, however, unlike the HS ones. Overall the Hot Soldiers toy has a
slight edge, but even on clearance was twice as expensive as Core Class
Soundwave...and it's nowhere near twice as good.

Robot Mode: While not the perfect Soundwave possible at this scale, it's
very good. Sure, it's missing a lot of the fine paint detail (notably on the
kneecaps and shins) and the weapons are hollow on their undersides, but the
molding is otherwise very good and the detail level of the paints about as
good as one can expect from a mass-market toy (I doubt this will get a
Premium Finish treatment). It is very definitely G1 animated Soundwave...in
fact, it has slightly more colored details than the animation model usually
displayed (add the gold vents under the kneecaps and add a few more red bands
on the weapons and forearms, and you'd be all set). I'm sure ToyHax will
come out with a sticker set to make it more toy-accurate, but I like the
cleaner lines and colors of the animation model more.
3.5" (9cm) tall in the traditional dark blue, silvery gray, and accents
of gold and red. Silvery gray plastic is used for the forearms, thighs,
feet, shoulder struts, and neck stalk. The tape door is dark smoky clear
plastic. Everything else is dark blue plastic. It's hard to be sure
(non-destructively) where the neck joins the head, but part of the strut is
definitely painted dark blue.
Silver paint is used on the faceplate and side vents, kneecaps, shins,
most of the inner faces of the boots, the belt control buttons, rifle tip,
and some of the shoulder details. There's red paint (which mostly appears to
be hand-painted and a bit sloppy) on the visor, shoulder details, missile
tips, and the front band of the rifle. The details on the tape door are
painted dull gold, as are the stripes flanking it and some bits on the boots
that connect up in tapedeck mode. A purple on silver Decepticon symbol is
printed on the center of the tape door.
The head is on a restricted ball joint, the waist does not turn. The
shoulders are ball joints with transformation hinges that let the arms swing
back. Ball joint elbows, inward-turning hinge wrists, ball joint hips, upper
thigh swivels, hinge knees (that bend both ways), and restricted ball joint
ankles. The tape door is hinged at its bottom, and the control panel skirt
shares that hinge and can lift up out of the way for extreme poses.
The hands hold 3mm pegs, and there are 3mm sockets on the upper torso
(dedicated to the shoulder missile launcher), and the outer faces of the
boots. No 5mm connections at all. The rifle can hold some 3mm socket Fire
Blasts, but only flexible plastic ones due to the sloped conical shape.

Cassette: The cassette is a non-transforming accessory molded as a
cassette and painted to look like Laserbeak. I don't know what color plastic
it's made of, since it's fully wrapped in gloss black paint, then silver and
red details.
For anyone interested in exacting dimensions for the cassette so they
can 3D print more designs, it's 20.0mm wide, 13.2mm tall, and 3.4mm thick.
The corners are all slightly truncated, with 2mm corner sides and 45 degree
cuts. It's about 40% the size of the G1 microcassettes, if not with
identical proportions.

Transformation: Fairly easy to figure out, the only thing I got "wrong"
was the orientation of the shoulder cannon in its on-the-back storage spot.
Note, getting the head back out when going back to robot mode is tricky but
not impossible with short nails.

Altmode: Well, the robot toes stick up at the corners, but otherwise
it's a pretty faithful reproduction of the G1 animation model, plus some toy
features (not always shown in animation) like the volume dial on the right
side and the molded "recording" light. You can even almost get a headphone
jack into the 3mm socket on top. While the weapons aren't hidden in a
battery compartment and the rear view is kibbly, that seems to be about as
good as can be done on this scale (the Hot Soldiers mold has substantively
the same rear view). Ironically, it's smaller than a regular tape, a
micro-microcassette recorder.
2.5" (6cm) wide and 1.25" (3cm) tall if you ignore the toes, 1.5" tall
with the toes. Mostly blue in the middle half, silver on the outer quarters,
and most of the gray plastic is hidden. No paint not already described, no
meaningful articulation other than the tape door. I suppose you could put a
flight base 3mm peg into one of the robot fists for a flying tapedeck
(emerging from Starscream's cockpit or something).

Overall: Well-engineered and probably as small as one could get
Soundwave without starting to sacrifice articulation and detail (WST
Soundwave IIRC had G1-level articulation). They didn't have to do the
opening chest, that's a nice bonus.


MAXIMAL: DRACODON
Assortment: WFC-K22
Altmode: Pachycephalosaur (juvenile) Skeleton
Transformation Difficulty: 14 steps
Previous Name Use: None
Previous Mold Use: Gen:Kingdom

Packaging: Two ties on the robot, one on the tail weapon.
The package art is the same as on Vertebreak, but in the new colors.
The background is slightly less hazy. It's still the Nemesis, despite the
fact this is a Maximal...makes me wonder if the faction swap was decided on
late in the game after the package art had already been approved?

Color Swaps: At first glance, it's just "all plastic is now bright
green," but there's several shades. It's easiest to tell them apart under UV
light, but they are visibly different even under regular light. The rubbery
plastic on the sword, beast head, robot chestplate, and backplate is the
darkest shade. The middle shade is found on the robot head, forearms,
thighs, and feet. The rest are lightest under regular light and glow
strongly in UV.

Paint Apps: As with Vertebreak, there's a lot of "why did they bother?"
paints. The feet are painted mostly green over green plastic, with gold
claws. I think the thighs and forearms might be painted or at least coated,
given their slightly weird look under UV. The sides of the beast head are
painted a slightly metallic bright green. There's also lots of gold,
including the top of the beast head, much of the robot chestplate, the robot
face, and the recessed strips on top of the robot helmet. The robot eyes are
metallic blue, while the beast eye sockets and ear fenestrae are painted
black.

Mold Changes: None that I noticed.

Other Notes: While all the browns on Vertebreak blend together under
normal light in beast mode, Dracodon's beast mode is more patchy in terms of
shades of green.

Overall: Well, it's a "new" Maximal, so kinda worthwhile from that point
of view, but it's the sort of deco that really screams for some sort of
official lore explanation that we're unlikely to get. In absence of canon,
I'm gonna blame it on Kryptonite.


Dave Van Domelen, will do Galvatron next.