Saturday 18 June 2016

Combiner Wars Blast Off


Countdown to chocolate based space puns, T-Minus 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... Blast Off!
Yes, Combiner Wars Blast Off, the controversial Not Space Shuttle is my second Combaticon to look at. 


For a robot mode (in much softer focus than I realised when I took these...) Blast Off looks alright eh? Bringing that Cadbury Dairy Milk themed deco with a big ol' badge and a gunmetal gun. Looks sharp enough. 



Yeah, he's got a face. Do I care? No. 

"OK, jerk."


Being a reworking of CW Firefly, here's that appropriate comparison (since I don't have Quickslinger, the bot that step closer on this mold's family tree)


And being a Firefly family member, he's a jet!
Again, do I care? No. 


To be honest (and reveal my very non-G1 allegiances) I never understood why there was a space shuttle in the Combaticons. How is that a military vehicle? When have they ever been brown? You get all these much-more-glaring-than-average scale incongruities with the rest of the team too. 
So, logically I think going back and doing it "properly" and making him a jet works just fine. When you line up the roster of vehicles his teammates make - truck, tank, jeep, chopper - it feels like "fighter jet" is the only thing missing in that military line up. 





Here he is being limbs that aren't on Bruticus again cos I took these photos before I got Onslaught...


Oh, there really weren't any chocolate space puns there were there? I am a disappointment. I'll just sit here and eat my Mars bar dejectedly. 

Next up: a 4WD con man! Probably. 

Sunday 12 June 2016

Combiner Wars Brawl


Today we take a look at my first of the Combiner Wars Combaticons, Brawl. 
Why wouldn't you start with the tank-based hardbastard of the team? Some of this figure's design choices put me off it at first (the waist and hips and lack of sharp angles in the chest block) but as soon as I had it in my hands I couldn't help but love it. I'm a sucker for military / utilitarian vehicles and I was certainly not going to pass up on a new deluxe rendition of (to my mind) the quintessential Decepticon tank man.



I mean, he has a flipping ab-crunch. 

Gunna punch ya


Plus fully functioning ankles. Oh yeah.




You can arm him up in different ways, but we all know that cannon's supposed to stick up out of his back. 





What a nicely meaty tank he makes. All square and khaki. Shame the turret doesn't move whatsoever. 



Of course he's a combiner too, making for particularly solid looking limbs. 
(We'll cover Bruticus another day.)


And then there's the turretface...




Shooting figures outside is my favourite way to capture the character of the things, especially when they're as rugged and green(ish) as Brawl. 

"Real bots roll on treads!"








All in all Brawl instantly felt like one of the superior Combiner Wars deluxes. Thanks to the addition of a couple of extra seldom-seen joints and an overall smattering of meticulous detail he certainly puts some of his counterparts to shame. 
Go on Brawl, bring the noise!

Thursday 9 June 2016

RID Destructicon Scourge (And A Welcome)


Right! Let's get this party started with a look at RID (2001) Destructicon Scourge!
Go ahead and click on the pic above for a fuller-size gallery mode!
I'll be mostly progressing with all this in no particular chronological order; neither is this guy my first bot or my latest. But he is my most recent "complete" look at a figure. 
Isn't he pretty?

THE PIPES, THE PIPES! 

I won't aim to waffle on, espousing opinions on the figures I feature here (I do enough of that on Twitter and Youtube) but I will give a little background when I feel like it.
Scourge here represents a 13 year want for me. Back in the halcyon days of 2003, when a trip to Toys R Us was a real pilgrimage, I recall seeing the Destructicons on pegs and marveling at them slightly for being RID figures essentially in Armada packaging. My curiousity was piqued until I saw the price tag and thought "£15 for a deluxe? What makes this worth a fiver more than the Armada ones?" and that was that. I never saw the pair again but they lingered somewhere in the back of my mind for years until I finally found Bludgeon at Auto Assembly in 2014 and more recently had a spectacular stroke of luck winning Scourge here MISB with a single bid on ebay. And for barely any more than the price I turned my nose up at 13 years ago. Nice.



He's a bit wobbly, bless him. 



With Takara Adventure Nemesis Prime

With G2 Hero Optimus Prime


With G2 Hero Optimus Prime

Being a redeco of 1995's Hero Optimus, I thought I'd include a comparison here. It's like night and day. Can't say for sure which I prefer, but Scourge's metallics and forearm badges make me lean towards him. 


With fellow Destructicon Bludgeon

That's it for now. I'll endeavour to make these posts a bit more like worthy content as time goes on, Hasta luego!