The Unlicensed Third Party Transformers Thread

[mikeszekely]

Not really sure how to approach this guy.... this is WuKong Vortex, who is a copy of Warbotron Whirlwind, who is their rendition of the Decepticon named Vortex. Now, here's the thing; to the best of my knowledge, the WuKong guys are at worst straight up copies of the original Warbotron toys, and at best supposedly fix some joint issues that the originals had or even add more accessories. I'd assume that 99% of what I'm going to write applies to the original Warbotrons, unless I specifically say otherwise. Two things, though: one, if you know something is different and I don't mention it, let me know! Two, if you're thinking about getting an original Warbotron, you might want to look into any potential issues or benefits that I might not have covered.

Anyway, Vortex, with Combiner Wars Vortex. Maybe I should have included a different Voyager-sized Transformer to compare with, because he's definitely closer to Voyager than to his Deluxe-class cousin.

Aesthetically, Vortex is a pretty good Vortex. The head sculpt is spot on, and colored like the toy but with a shade of blue closer to the cartoon than the toy, and not as turquoise as the Combiner Wars version. His eyes are yellow, which is a little odd given that Vortex was one of the instances where both toy and 'toon had red eyes, but that's pretty minor. The biggest departure from G1 Vortex is that his torso is dominated by a yellow canopy. Past the canopy, though, and his torso is the gray and purple of the toy, with more of the same blue and gray making up the rest of him. I like that, even though his legs don't make up the cockpit like G1 Vortex, the tops of his feet are painted black to call back to the black windows on G1 Vortex's feet. The rotors don't fold up, which is I guess still G1-accurate, and the tail fins on his legs are pegged in, so they can be removed, or if you prefer the place where they were pegged in can rotate independantly of his feet or shins, so you can fold them onto either the sides of his legs or the back.

Articulation on Vortex is good. Head is on a ball joint, the shoulders rotate at the shoulder armor and can move laterally 90 degrees within the shoulder armor. He's got bicep swivels and wrist swivels, elbows that bend 90 degrees in either direction, and all his fingers (molded together as one piece) are on a hinge so he can open and close his hands. His waist swivels and he's got universal hips with soft ratchets for the forward and backward motion. He's got thigh swivels, knees that bend 90 degrees, and his ankle is on a rotating piece to turn his feet inward or outward. His toes and heel spurs are on hinges that give him downward and some upward movement. The toes are on ball joints and the heels on little mushroom pegs to give him faux ankle tilt.

Although the rotor blades don't fold up, they are all removable and can be held as swords.

He additionally comes with these accessories. We'll cover them separately.

First are the translucent yellow parts. You can use them to cheat the rotors into a folded position on his back.

Or, you can use them to give Vortex more options for bladed weapons.

These guns, really meant to mimic the side guns on the G1 toy, can be mounted to special points on Vortex's shoulders, or onto his forearms. They have both molded pegs on the sides and flip out pegs on the underside, but the pegs are too small for him to use them as handheld guns.

Lastly, there's the large chunk that's actually part of his helicopter-mode front end. The idea is that you're supposed to transform it (slightly) into a handheld gun. This is where things start to go south, because not only does it look kind of stupid but the weight of it causes his arm to droop. And, there's simply no place to store it on his body in robot mode, meaning that he either holds it and looks dumb, or you set it aside. Now, I'd like to think that I'm fairly tolerant about partsforming, especially compared to some people. And the side guns and yellow bits I don't mind, because they're not integral to anything. But I'm not a big fan of removing vital parts of an alt-mode and just setting them off to the side in robot mode, so this is a poor decision to have to make.

While not exactly G1-accurate in helicopter mode, I think WuKong Vortex/Warbotron Whirlwind does a better job than the Combiner Wars version. Despite the missiles molded onto the sides of the super obvious arms, CW Vortex's small painted windshield, long and thin dimensions, and unpainted but molded windows on the sides make him look more like a civilian or rescue helicopter. WuKong Vortex/Warbotron Whirlwind brings back the nose-mounted gun of the G1, and instead of mounting guns onto the sides of the tail boom he's got wings behind the cockpit to mount the guns on like some attack helicopters. In copter mode, the rotors spin (although they're likely to bang into each other), the canopy can open, and he's got fold out landing gear. It's worth noting that the rectangular bits on the ends of the wings with the yellow lights (or are they supposed to be missiles?) are removable. There's nowhere else to put them in either mode, though, so unless you want to leave them in the box there's no point in taking them off.

So, do I recommend Vortex or Whirlwind? Not exactly. On his own, as a standalone figure, I just don't think he's good enough. He's not exactly bad, though, so if you're getting him to complete the set you're not really going to be super disappointed, either.

[David Hingtgen]

Psst----G1 Vortex was a rescue chopper.

[mikeszekely]

Psst----G1 Vortex was a rescue chopper.

An HH-2C, right? Which were used for search and rescue, yeah, but an armed one for the Marines in Vietnam. CW Vortex strikes me as more of a civilian or Coast Guard helicopter. More like an S-92 than an HH-2C, even though the tail is way different.

[David Hingtgen]

The toon model seems more YUH-61 than anything. But the toy and toon are very different.

[mikeszekely]

The toon model seems more YUH-61 than anything. But the toy and toon are very different.

And both are more angular around the cockpit than any helicopter I've seen. I went HH-2C because it was close, and it had the gun on the chin. YUH-61 looks close too, but wasn't that one going to be a troop transport?

Addendum to my Vortex/Whirlwind review: I was messing around with him and I noticed that some of the panels on the sides of the the helicopter chin (the part that is removed in bot mode) looked like they could come off. They do! Apparently, that's storage for the little yellow translucent pieces. Neat!

Also, whether we're talking about the WuKong releases or the original Warbotron releases, Vortex was released later in the line. So why review him first? Spoilers: he's the weakest of the four limb-bots. It gets better from here! As for torso bots... well, the WuKong version was pushed back until at least late June, and I doubt I can wait that long to complete this guy, since Bruticus is my favorite combiner. Besides, you have to spend $150 to get free shipping from TF-Direct, so the TF-Direct price + shipping won't be the huge savings over, say, Captured Prey's price + shipping on the actual Warbotron one, so I'm probably going to wind up ordering the real one. Maybe even tonight or tomorrow.

Speaking of orders, got the message from BBTS that my Talon and Tigris are in and they took payment, so I'm guessing I'll have them in hand by the end of the week, early next week at the latest. Then it's just a matter of waiting for Vulcan to be released before I take a break from 3P combiners.

Edited May 2, 2016 by mikeszekely

[mikeszekely]

So here we have Blast, WuKong's KO of Warbotron's Air Burst, who was their take on Blast Off.

Aesthetically, I love Warbotron's take on Blast Off, and it feels really unfair to compare it to a brown-painted Slingshot (even if I did replace his head with one I pulled from a second CW Vortex). Air Burst/Blast has the right amount of G1 cues: his mostly brown color with purple on his torso, gorgeous head sculpt, silver-painted vents on his chest (pulled from Guido Guidi's art in a Dreamwave sourcebook?) and even toy-style parts of the cockpit on his shoulders. Where he departs from the G1 version are mostly things that are for the better, like cleaner forearms and little bits of color breakup by using a darker purple for his forearms and thighs. Warbotron really did an excellent job with the sculpt and paint; just enough molded details and spots of paint to avoid appearing either boring or busy.

Air Burst/Blast's accessories are pretty good. He comes with a pair of pistols, and (partsforming alert!) part of his tail section turns into missile launchers. The missile launchers can be pegged into his forearms, but they do have fold out handles if you want them to be hand weapons.

His articulation is in line with Vortex/Whirlwinds's. His shoulders can go all the way around and 90 degrees out the side. His shoulder armor gets in the way a little, but the armor bits are on ball joints connected to a hinge. He's got bicep and wrist swivels,90 degrees of elbow bend, and the same hinged fingers as Vortex/Whirlwind. His head's on a ball joint, his waist swivels, and universal hips with soft ratchets on the forward/backward movement. His hip armor is hinged and can move out of the way of his hips. He's got thigh swivels and knees that bend a little less than 90 degrees. His feet are ball jointed, plus his toe can turn for extra ankle tilt. His thrusters form his heels and are on hinged to make sure he stays stable.

If you don't want him to carry the missile launchers on his arms or in his hands, you can flip them around and keep them pegged on the back of his legs.

Unlike the Combiner Wars version of Blast Off, Air Burst/Blast turns into a shuttle. Probably not the most accurate shuttle, but very similar to the G1 version down to the stripes of purple on the wings and the purple windshield. He's not as smooth as the G1 toy, but the angles give him an aggressive appearance. Even with some partsforming involved, it's unmistakably Blast Off, much more so than the CW toy.

Blast/Air Burst's gun barrels collapse, and the guns can be pegged into either of two holes on the bottom of each wing. The wings themselves are hinged in a few spots for folding up, and are attached via 5mm pegs if you want to remove them for some reason. He's also got fold out landing gear in his chest and molded landing gear on his feet. Sadly, only the landing gear in his chest rolls.

If you prefer, you can also peg his guns onto his sides in shuttle mode. The yellow-tipped bits on the ends of his wings are removable, but as with the bits on Vortex/Whirlwind's arms there's no point. In fact, there's ample reason to leave them on, as they have small tabs on top that can fit in the peg holes on the back of his leg. Kind of handy for bot mode, but I have a feeling it'll be very useful in arm mode.

I'm going to say that I definitely recommend Blast/Air Burst, even if you have no intention of getting any of the other not-Combaticons. He's not perfect, especially if you hate partsforming, but he's still very good. If you can deal with a little backpack and the aforementioned partsforming, you get a Blast Off with solid articulation and a fantastic appearance.

[JB0]

Unlike the Combiner Wars version of Blast Off, Air Burst/Blast turns into a shuttle. Probably not the most accurate shuttle, but very similar to the G1 version down to the stripes of purple on the wings and the purple windshield.

Not even a remotely accurate shuttle, but still a damn sight better than the Unite Warriors Blast Off shuttle.

And to be fair, the original Blast Off wasn't a very good shuttle either(though it WAS more accurate than this one).

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

New photos of Wildrider and Breakdown from that gigantic Menasor have emerged. Not really feeling Breakdown's colors; those blue dots at the rear are off-putting.

[JET7]

great fig..so heavy.

size comparison with KO reximus g1 color

[Dangard Ace]

Glad I skipped OG Spinout. Actual toy looks like a gappy mess. Post 5958 by daimchoc. http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-3rd-party-discussion/990117-omnigonix-v-01-spinout-mp-scaled-sunstreaker-298.html

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

Glad I skipped OG Spinout. Actual toy looks like a gappy mess. Post 5958 by daimchoc. http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-3rd-party-discussion/990117-omnigonix-v-01-spinout-mp-scaled-sunstreaker-298.html

Uh oh. Well, I'll wait for a thorough review before cancelling my order.

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

I never got a chance to show this until I got home. I disliked TFC's Blackbird so much that I wanted to exclude him and salvage the rest of Uranos' limbs somehow. This is what it looks like when you buff out a CW Silverbolt with Perfect Effect's breastplate and nonef's thigh fillers, then attach Uranos limbs via glaug's Shapeways adapters:

Edited May 3, 2016 by Valkyrie Hunter D

[mikeszekely]

Today we're going to be looking at WuKong's Swindle, which is a copy of Warbotron's Sly Strike, which was their take on Swindle.

Swindle/Sly Strike is an extremely Swindle-y Swindle. His head is probably the best Swindle head since Animated, with big purple eyes and and a smirky smile befitting of a guy who'd sell his friends for parts. His purple torso nails the G1 toy's look, with silver-painted vents to mimic sticker details from the toy. He's got the same black thighs and hands, and the same yellowy tan of the G1 toy, with touches of silver, purple, and blue to break things up. He's even got some molded circles flanking molded rectangular bit just above his hips that are mildly evocative of cartoon Swindle's jeep bumper belly.

I mean, I thought Combiner Wars Swindle was probably the best of Deluxe of the entire CW line, and Swindle/Sly Strike puts him to shame.

Speaking of jeep fronts, although you can't get the windshield chest, you can fold the front of his alt-mode onto his chest if you prefer that look.

Swindle/Sly Strike's articulation is basically the same as the other two limbs we've looked at, so go back and re-read one of them, and then I'll tell you what's different. He looses the ratchets in his hips, which he doesn't really need since the Warbotron guys are NOT Scramble City-able and Swindle/Sly Strike doesn't turn into an arm that needs ratcheted hips to double as an elbow that has to support a gun as big as he is. And unlike the other two limbs, Swindle/Sly Strike's heels is a hinged part of his whole foot, which is on a hinged ball joint, so when you turn or tilt his ankle you don't have to separately adjust his heel. Due to his transformation, his foot can bend up quite a bit but not so much down. Also due to transformation he has a much deeper knee bend.

Whether you got the WuKong version or the Warbotron version, Swindle/Sly Strike comes with a pistol and a larger cannon that mimic the G1 toy's guns. He can hold them in either hand.

The WuKong version also comes with a little yellow tab that comes now with Warbotron's Sly Strike but with Fierce Attack, their not-Onslaught. The tab has a peg that fits into the raised screw holes on either shoulder, and has a peg hole that you can peg his cannon into. Sadly, there's no place to plug the cannon onto his arm like cartoon Swindle.

WuKong Swindle comes with two other accessories that Warbotron Sly Strike doesn't; a translucent purple shotgun and a shield. Amusingly, WuKong seems to have come up with these accessories by copying weapons from Gundam kits; if I'm not mistaken that's a Kämpfer shotgun and a RGM-79[G]'s shield.

Swindle/Sly Strike turns into a Humvee, a design decision shared by Fansproject's Munitioner, if I'm not mistaken. I think it's a good alt-mode for Swindle; the G1 toy wasn't merely a jeep but an XR311, a larger prototype vehicle referred to as a High Mobility Combat Vehicle and a predecessor of the modern Humvee. Swindle/Sly Strike certainly pulls it off better than CW Swindle, who's only real resemblance to G1 Swindle is an open top.

Both of Swindle/Sly Strike's guns can mount onto peg holes on the back of the Humvee.

Now, Swindle/Sly Strike has a few issues that are worth mentioning. For one, there's the wheels on his shoulders. They're on a hinge at the end of an arm and can be moved so they don't hinder his articulation, and you can try to position them in whatever way you think is best, but they never seem to look right. Two, the roof, windshield, and front grill make up a backpack. It's not huge (much, much smaller than Munitioner's), but it is there. Strangely, the roof and windshield are actually tabbed together and can be split apart, but there's nowhere you can really move them so splitting them is kind of pointless. Lastly, there's the fact that you get that cannon, but you can't plug it into his arm. I've seen people mod their cannons to fit into the screw hole on his outside of his elbow, but it's a bummer that it wasn't a feature out of the box.

These are pretty minor complaints, though, that in no way hinder your enjoyment of the figure. I don't just recommend him, then. I strongly recommend him. Due to his personality and the extra screen time he had, Swindle's probably a lot of your favorite Combaticons, and Swindle/Sly Strike is the best representation of Swindle in toy form by a wide margin.

Edited May 4, 2016 by mikeszekely

[JET7]

tooned toys

[anime52k8]

Sometimes I forget just how stupid Devastator's animation model actually looked.

[mikeszekely]

Just a heads up, now I've been reviewing the WuKong KOs of Warbotron's Combaticons, which I got because there's not supposed to be much difference between them and the Warbotron ones. But another group that goes by a couple names, including Machine Boy and Mengbadi, is also releasing KOs of the Warbotron guys and they're starting to show up on eBay. The auctions I'm looking at are around $25 shipped, but unlike the WuKongs there are some color differences:

Brawl - Mostly the same, but the green is a much brighter green and the purple accents are red.

Swindle - The yellowy-tan is a bright yellow, the purple parts are sort of a cobalt color, the translucent parts are red, and the windows are painted black.

Vortex - The blue parts are black, the purple parts are red, and the gray parts are blue.

Blast Off - The brown is now purple, the purple is gray, the translucent purple is lime green, and some of the accents are painted lime green.

No idea how the quality is, but as cheap as they are I'm curious. I bought a Swindle, that way I can mod the cannon to plug into WuKong Swindle's arm without trashing his cannon. If the quality is decent, though, I might buy the other three and repaint them as either G2 Bruticus or RID Ruination.

[mikeszekely]

Getting back to WuKong, here's Brawl, a copy of Warbotron's Heavy Noisy, who was Warbotron's version of Brawl.

Much like they did with Swindle, I feel like Warbotron really nailed Brawl's appearance. He's primarily the same Army green as the G1 toy with the same dark thighs, abdomen, and head, and beautifully light-piped yellow eyes. He breaks up his colors a little by going for black hands and a green crotch, and he's got some details done in purple, silver, gray, and black, including a silver bumper, gray details on waist, and black vents on this shins that are all evocative of the original toy's stickers. Like the G1 and CW toy the his chest is made from the front of the tank, his shoulders are the front treads, his back legs are the unfolded back half of the thank, and he carries his turret on his back. Unlike the CW toy, he does it without little forearms and an awkward abdomen. Plus, he has feet!

Brawl/Heavy Noisy's articulation is the same as Swindle/Sly Strike's, although his lateral shoulder movement is a little inhibited by his large tank tread shoulders. In addition to his feet, he's got an extra set of heal spurs on the insides of his legs.

Like Combiner Wars Brawl, Brawl/Heavy Noisy can use the tank barrel as a weapon. It's a little more involved, though, as it retains part of the turret. The rest of the turret can clip onto the treads on his left forearm as a shield.

If, like me, you prefer the G1 look of leaving the turret intact on his back, he also comes with a pair of pistols modeled off the one carried by G1 Brawl. They look especially nice with the silver paint on the barrels.

Like Swindle, WuKong Brawl comes with a few accessories that Warbotron Heavy Noisy didn't. Again, they seem to be Gundam weapons molded in translucent plastic; two bullpup machine guns, a beam rifle, and a long-range beam rifle. This time, all of the weapons are from the RX-78GP01 Gundam Zephyranthes.

Brawl/Heavy Noisy turns into a very nice tank that's very similar to the G1 toy. His pistols can peg into holes on the top of the turret. Sadly, the treads don't roll, or even have wheels for fake rolling. He's got a nice size, and I think he cleans up a bit better than the CW version. My only complaint, besides the lack of rolling, is a small one: the turret has to be removed and reattached for transformation, as the part of Brawl's back that it clips onto folds over.

Like CW Brawl, the barrel of the tank can move up and down, but unlike the CW version the turret can rotate 360 degrees on it's connection point. He's also got enough ports that you can attach a few of the extra WuKong weapons.

So, do I recommend Brawl/Heavy Noisy? Most definitely. He's a nice Voyager-sized toy that absolutely nails Brawl's appearance. He's not perfect, but the complaints I have with him are very minor. And with 3 out of 4 limbs recommended as solo figures, I have to say that I've got high hopes for Fierce Attack and the combined mode.

[mikeszekely]

Well, I've got Quantron, but I'm going to hold off on him and the six posts it'll take me to review him here. Talon and Tigris should be here Saturday, and Fierce Attack on Monday, so I'll probably review them (and Feral Rex and Bruticus) before I start on Quantron.

Some final thoughts on the WuKong/Warbotron guys... while I think that the sculpts are fantastic, the use of paint spot on, and the general designs of their bot and alt modes range from acceptable (Vortex) to great (Brawl and Swindle), and their articulation is good, they're honestly pretty simple figures. Everyone but Swindle requires some level of partsforming, and Vortex and Swindle have kibble backpacks. Also, if you're into clever or complicated Transformations, these guys aren't it. Vortex has the most complex transformation, and it's honestly nothing Hasbro couldn't pull of in at least a Leader-class.

I have heard about issues with the original Warbotron guys, I think most notoriously Heavy Noisy's arm sliders were breaking because they were so tight. None of the WuKong versions seem to have those problems. If anything, I wish Vortex's elbow was a little stronger so he could better hold up that nose gun. Likewise, I heard at least first runs of Fierce Attack came with replacement torsos for Air Burst that have tabs to pull out the landing gear and to add a ratchet to the combiner part. WuKong Vortex already comes with those changes. I wish I could compare more, but I don't have access to the Warbotron originals.

Lastly, there's some debate in some corners of the internet about whether or not Warbotron is actually TFC. My only experience with TFC is Uranos, and comparing Warbotron Bruticus to Uranos I can say that while I see some similarity, like the fact that Blast Off's wings are on 5mm pegs the way all the Uranos guys are, they feel more different than alike. My gut says they're not the same, although I suspect that Warbotron and Generation Toy are either the same or share a designer the way Fansproject and Maketoys do/did.

[Silverstreak]

Sometimes I forget just how stupid Devastator's animation model actually looked.

And keep in mind that people want that in Masterpiece form

[mikeszekely]

Preordered are starting to go up for MakeToys Vulcan.

[technoblue]

Preordered are starting to go up for MakeToys Vulcan.

Cool. I'll be looking forward to your review of him and the combined form.

Luckily I have some MMC Reformatted bots coming my way this week, or I might have fallen off my "no combiners" wagon. But if I were to fall off, I think I like Maketoys' style the most given what I've seen in this thread.

[anime52k8]

Preordered are starting to go up for MakeToys Vulcan.

that looks sexy.

[sh9000]

[anime52k8]

image.jpegimage.jpeg

But does he have the triple changing face gimmick.

[sh9000]

http://tfsource.com/transform-dream-wave/

The Defensor and Bruticus add-on kits look decent.

[David Hingtgen]

Tarn? Tarn.

[anime52k8]

Tarn Kawaii-desu...

[Scyla]

That is so awesome. I'm totally on board for Kultur and Carnifex. Man, I must sound like a crazy MMC fanboy but I just can't help it.

Someone on the TFW boards mentioned that the DJD line wasn't that successful for MMC so I hope this one does fine. I really hope they continue their Reformatted line. If I had to chose between those and MP Transformers I favor the Reformatted bots without a second thought.

[edit:] That Titanika

Edited May 7, 2016 by Scyla

[David Hingtgen]

"Not an original G1 TV character" will turn off a huge chunk of the fandom, even if a "new" character in the comics has 100x more lines, presence, and dialogue than someone "who once got their name said by Optimus in season 3"

Also, frankly, Vos and Kaon don't have a whole lot of characterization, compared to Tarn. Tarn's the only one who's really fleshed out as a character. Vos I think sold more as "awesome gun for Feral Rex" rather than "the other DJD guy that wears a mask, too".

[mikeszekely]

If I finish my combiners and get the Function X guys I want, the Reformatted guys are are on my list

[Scyla]

"Not an original G1 TV character" will turn off a huge chunk of the fandom, even if a "new" character in the comics has 100x more lines, presence, and dialogue than someone "who once got their name said by Optimus in season 3"

Also, frankly, Vos and Kaon don't have a whole lot of characterization, compared to Tarn. Tarn's the only one who's really fleshed out as a character. Vos I think sold more as "awesome gun for Feral Rex" rather than "the other DJD guy that wears a mask, too".

I guess I'm a bit of an oddity among Transformers collectors. While I have nostalgia for the Transformers due to a handful toys I had as a kid since my mother was against me playing with "war toys" (mainly G1 Dreadwind who was my most beloved toy as a kid. Other than that I had a few small bots mainly from the Euro G1 toy line) and the comics I read in the news stand when I was skipping music lessons I'm not a super fan. I'm manly in for the cool robots and could care less about scale or accuracy to the source material; if it's well made and oozes quality I'm interested. I even bought my first MTMTE comic after I bought Cynicus, Anarchus and Commotus last year because I wanted to know whats up with the robots I'm having in my shelves.

That said it was probably a bad idea since now I want MMC to make more toys inspired by MTMTE. Maybe remolding an IDW styled Star Saber from Carnifex?

Edited May 7, 2016 by Scyla

[mikeszekely]

Fierce Attack arrived a day early, so I'm going to wrap up the WuKong/Warbotron reviews. So here he is, Warbotron's take on Onslaught, and this time it's not a WuKong KO, with Universe Ultra Class Onslaught on the left and Combiner Wars Voyager Onslaught on the right.

Aesthetically, I'm not sure how I feel about him. I think his head is a good sculpt for Onslaught, and sort of splits the difference between toy and 'toon with his head being mostly black, but with a silver face plate and a bit of blue detailing. Likewise, he's predominantly a dark blue and goes for the 'toon's olive-colored hips and leg details, but he ditches the tan of the toy entirely, and adds some black to his waist and biceps. Perhaps the most jarring thing about Fierce Attack, though, is his Optimus Prime-ish truck window chest instead of either the 'toon's relatively featureless chest or the toy's sticker details, which the CW Onslaught rendered via paneling. I want to say that my first impression wasn't one that screamed "Onslaught," but the more I mess with him the more he grows on me.

Articulation is exactly what you'd expect from Warbotron at this point; head looks side to side with a little up-down, shoulders can rotate 360 and extend to the sides, biceps swivel, elbows bend 90 degrees, wrist swivels and fingers can open, waist swivels, universal hips with soft ratchets for the forward-backward motion, knees bend 90 degrees, ankles can tilt and have a little up-down movement due to the transformation. As far as accessories go, it seems that, like CW Onslaught, he's meant to use his back cannons as handheld weapons, which he does well but they're heavy enough that he can be tricky to pose.

If, like me, you prefer to keep his cannons on his back, those extra Gundam guns that came with WuKong Brawl and Swindle are looking a lot more useful.

Fierce Attack also comes with the parts for combined mode: two feet, two hands, a chest plate, and a big gun. The feet are kind of neat because they have twin-barreled cannons and molded treads, so they look like little tank drones. There really isn't anything you can do with the chest plate and hands, though.

The big gun is an odd duck. The stock has two parts that can move. The handle is on a peg and can be removed, and the peg can flip into the gun. There's a similar peg on the other side of the gun. The main barrel can also fold over, giving the gun a more compact look. My first thought was that it's a mode for Fierce Attack to hold himself, but if you move the stockall the way out of the way of the barrel it prevents him from holding the peg, which is kind of too small for him anyway. He just looks awkward holding it.

Fierce Attack's alt mode is spot-on Onslaught. While CW Onslaught puts forth a valiant effort at "long and skinny with guns on top", only Fierce Attack got the truck right. And he is long! Long enough to tow Heavy Noisy/Brawl. But he's not without some partsforming. Aside from having to remove the guns from Fierce Attack's back to peg them onto the vehicle, the missiles on the sides of the truck split and half go on the outside of his thighs and half go on his hips. But, biggest of all, his trailer detatches and has nothing to do with his robot mode.

Honestly, that doesn't bother me too much. I mean, if Optimus can do it, why not Onslaught? And what's neat is that you can use one of the tank drone-feet to tow the trailer.

I've got other gripes with Fierce Attack, though, and they all boil down to QC. For me, one of his side mirrors was so tight that I bent it trying it move it, one of the missile sets that go on his hips was deformed, one of the barrels on one of the feet was slightly bent and has stress marks right out of the box, and some stuff that's supposed to peg into different places, like his back guns, tend to do so a little loosely. Oh, and the fold out instructions are borderline useless. It's stuff like this that makes me understand why people were saying the WuKong KOs were better than the originals.

So, do I recommend Fierce Attack? Maybe... if the WuKong version, which won't be out until late July now, has better QC, since I do think he's a pretty good Onslaught. But the actual Warbotron one isn't worth the price he commands.

[mikeszekely]

We're going to wrap up the WuKong Warbotron fun today with a look at Warbotron WB-01, who I think WuKong just calls Bruticus, who is indeed Warbotron's version of Bruticus.

We'll start with Fierce Attack/Onslaught, who transforms into just this much of Bruticus.

The trailer that didn't make up any part of Onslaught's bot mode folds up into the rest of the torso. Then it's just a matter of connecting the chest plate and limbs.

Up to this point, I'd say things were going mostly good. The back guns tabbed on a little loosely, and it takes care to position Bruticus's head without revealing Onslaught's, but everything else seemed tight. In fact, There's extra panels and pegs just for holding Onslaught's shoulders in place and connecting him to the trailer, although Onslaught's arms just sort of hang out behind Bruticus.

Then I attached the limbs and got him to hold the gun.

On paper, Bruticus's head can turn left and right and swivel up and down. The back guns have hinges so they can tilt forward, like Bruticus is firing them over his shoulders. The combiner ports swing out from the body to give Bruticus's arms their lateral movement, and they rotate on soft ratchets inside the combiner pegs on Vortex and Blast Off. Vortex and Blast Off's waists become bicep swivels, and their hips become elbows. Unlike other combiners that tend to use this configuration, you can't really orient them to use their knees as doube-joints for the elbows. The hands have wrist swivels and what look like joints for wrist tilt, but I couldn't get them to bend with what I'd consider reasonable force. Each finger is individually articulated, and with a ball joint and a single knuckle in the thumb and fingers that are hinged at the hand and have two more knuckles. One nice thing here is that the fingers are actually different lengths. Bruticus has a waist swivel, universal hips, and the combiner pegs in the knees ratchet for knee bend. The ankles can rotate and the feet have built in ratchets for ankle tilt, and the toes can bend upward.

In practice, he's back-heavy and his ankles, which don't have forward/backward tilt, have just enough play that he wants to lean a little forward or tip over backward. And it turns out the ankle connectors are just pegged into the foot, and the right foot's a little loose and tends to fall off. And, as I mentioned, the connection for the back cannons are kind of loose. That's on Warbotron. The left hand didn't fit well on the pegs for them on Vortex, and I had to shave some of the pegs off. I'll say that's on WuKong, but given the other issues I had with Fierce Attack I'll concede that it could be on Warbotron. The ratchet in both Vortex and Blast Off's combiner peg isn't strong enough; Vortex can extend but droops under the weight of the massive gun. Blast Off's peg can't even support his own weight and will droop back down no matter what. That's definitely on WuKong. Lastly, those hinges in back cannons? One was misassembled and I had to take it apart and repair it. That's back on Warbotron. That's a lot of shoddy QC, and while you might expect and forgive it a little from a KO like WuKong the majority of it is on Warbotron, and that simply shouldn't be. And in any case, it makes posing him a little challenging, which is disappointing when I've heard other people talk about how solid their WB-01 is.

Posing issues aside, there's no denying that WB-01 makes for a large, imposing, and good-looking Bruticus. The lighter gray that was on the original toy's head, chest, waist, and pelvis are a darker gray, which is fine (better than the CW gunmetal head), with painted purple accents and a black abdomen. The head is a little stylized but hits all the right notes with the painted red eyes, mouth plate, little antenna, and forehead crest. His thighs are toy-blue with green accents to mimic sticker detail, his hands silver with purple details, and even his feet are the same basic shape as the toy's, if you ignore the cannons on his heels and the brown accents. The biggest departure from G1 Bruticus is actually how the limbs are arranged; Blast Off is connected at his belly instead of his back, Vortex's tail becomes a wrist instead of his cockpit, and the top of Swindle's alt-mode is on the front side instead of the back. They're minor changes that don't detract from a Bruticus aesthetic; in fact CW Bruticus does the same with Blast Off and Swindle. So, while Bruticus is my absolute favorite of the five-man Combiner Wars gestalts, WB-01 obliterates it.

To give you a better idea of size, here he is with Ordin.. From foot to the top of their heads, they're very close in height, although Bruticus gains some mass from from Blast Off and Vortex's cockipts and the cannons on his back rising well above his head. Speaking of Ordin, Ordin took a lot of flak because Hagen and Alberich's arms folded up and didn't tab in when they're in arm mode. Bruticus is worse. The extremely vague instructions aren't so much telling you how to transform Blast Off and Vortex's arms to get them into arm mode as they are suggestions for how to get them out of the way as best you can... suggestions I ignored for Vortex, since the Warbotron way hinders the hip-elbow articulation and my way doesn't.

Now that I have him combined, do I recommend Warbotron's Bruticus? I really want to say yes... Bruticus is my favorite combiner, and WB-01 nails it for looks and size. But a lot of the nagging QC issues hang like storm clouds over the whole experience. I'd have to say, at Warbotron's prices, WB-01 isn't worth it for the combined mode experience; just get them if you want an individual Swindle, Brawl, or maybe Blast Off for your collection. His flaws are easier to overlook if you're going for the cheaper WuKong KOs, especially if the impending WuKong Onslaught fixes some of the Warbotron problems. Plus, I have the Machine Boy/Mengbadi Swindle coming. I'll let you know how he is when he gets here, but if they're good you could get a somewhat off-colored Bruticus for something like $150, which really makes some of his issues easy to ignore.

[mikeszekely]

Well, Warbotron doesn't get much of a reaction around here; maybe I'll have better luck with MMC? Here's Talon, MMC's Divebomb.

Talon, seen here with Combiner Wars Hotspot and fellow arm-bot Alberich, is comfortably Voyager-sized. Aesthetically, he's probably the MMC not-Predacon that diverges the least from his inspiration, really only trading the original toy's gold feet and yellow hands for black ones. He's even got the gold deco on his shins and the molded vents on his chest. Somewhere along the way, he did sprout a pair of twin-barreled guns on his forearms. I'm not entirely sure where the inspiration for them came, but they can be rotated or even removed if you're not a fan. His bird-head hat can be worn up, as pictured, or looking forward G1-style. Unlike Bovis and Fortis, though, Talon's head isn't inside the bird's mouth.

As you'd expect from an MMC toy, articulation is quite good. His head is on a ball joint connected to a hinged plate. The combination gives him a swivel but also an outstanding up-down range and even a ton of tilt. His shoulders are universal joints with soft ratches for rotation and nice clicky ratchets for lateral movement. His biceps swivel, and his elbows are double-jointed and can touch his shoulders, which is actually part of his transformation. Like Felisaber, he's actually got two waist swivels. Sandwiched between them in his abdomen is a joint meant to be his arm-mode elbow. Depending on how you orient it, Talon either has an ab crunch or can arch his back. His tail feather is on a double hinge, and the hinge is on an independently-rotating part. If you wanted to, you could have him wear it in front of him like an apron, although it's meant to keep the tail on the back of Rex's arm regardless of how the arm is oriented. His hips are ratcheted universals, he's got a thigh swivel just above his knee, which gets you a ratcheted bend of 90 degrees. His feet are on ball joints at the end of a hinged armature with another hinge in the middle of the foot for toe tilt, so you can get all sorts of crazy poses.

For accessories, he comes with more daggers (meh) and an honestly pretty cool sniper rifle. I actually dig the idea of Talon/Divebomb flying around above a battlefield, sniping targets while the rest of the team gets in close. Like the other Rex limb bots, he's got rotating parts with peg holes on this thighs to store weapons.

Due to the way his legs transform vs. the original toys there's more black and gold than orange on his bird legs. This seems to have prompted MMC to make the curious decision to break up the black by molding his bird feet in gray plastic instead of black, which is kind of a bummer because it's so out of place. His bird head is lacking some of the hooked-beak and crest of the G1 version. But otherwise, again, he's very close to the source material. Articulation is a bit limited in this mode, the bird's neck is his bot head, so it's still got that ball joint plus a hinge for the bird head to look up and down, plus the bird's mouth opens and closes. The hip swivels and ab crunch is intact, and his hips still provide some forward-backward and lateral movement, but not nearly as much before things start popping apart. He loses the thigh swivel. The bird feet are hinged, and each toe can move independantly, but there's no ankle tilt in this mode. His wings are very articulate, too. They're made of a black part that connects to the yellow backpack on a pin that allows them to move up and down. The black part connects at the other end to on orange part on a ratcheted hinge for back and forth mvoement. The orange parts connect with a pin to another black part for further up-down movement, then each gold feather (except the top one) is pinned independantly so they can be splayed out.

Talon's weapons can be stored on his backpack in bird mode. His forearm guns can be be plugged into peg holes on the orange parts of his wings, too. The entire backpack can be removed; it's how they move to Rex's back when Talon is an arm. It actually plugs into Talon's combiner port, which has me thinking that it could also be used to give wings to Leo Dux, Felisaber, or Tigris. Speaking of Dux, in a feature I didn't show here, the black chunks that make up Dux's lion chest in beast mode, part of Rex's sword in combined mode, but have no place to go on Dux's bot mode can plug onto Talon's wings. Hooray for storage options, amirite?

One final feature of Talon is that he's got a combiner peg in his belly. While you can (and probably will) make your Feral Rex with the five figures representing the G1 Predacons and have Talon as an arm, you can use Felisaber as an arm instead. Then, instead of pegging Talon's wings onto Rex's back, you use this peg to peg Talon in his entiretly onto Rex's back.

Do I recommend Talon? I do indeed! Talon, like Felisaber, has the quality build you expect from an MMC toy but is simpler and less of a pain than Leo Dux, Bovis, or Fortis. My gripes with him are minor: gaps in his forearms where his hands flip out, the wings make him a tad back-heavy, and the daggers are kind of crappy melee weapons (a complaint I have across the whole Feral Rex line). I love the sniper rifle, though, and he's a great representation of Divebomb. All-in-all, he's a fun toy all on his own.

[Scyla]

You can absolutely give the wings to Leo Dux or Tigris and have a cool winged lion or tiger if you want to. Works in bot mode too if I remember correctly.