Post
by Tantrum » Sun Jan 29, 2017 5:20 pm
I'm underwhelmed with my recent haul.
RiD Bisk should be just what I want from the line: an animal/humanoid hybrid bot mode, whise form allows for a unique transformation. So why don't I like him? That's not rhetorical, I just don't care for him much at all and can't figure out why. I might be the orange, which manages to be simultaneously obnoxious and bland, or the lack of head/neck articulation.
RiD Scatterspike is a redeco of Quillfire, who I already have. I prefer SS's mauve and lavender to QF's tan, brown, and grey. First, I just like SS's colors better. Second, I prefer the alt mode to have a single dominant color.
TR Gnaw is the best of the bunch. The shark eyes are hemispheres of translucent yellow plastic, which give the beast mode a suitable creepy look. The jaw has Titanmaster pegs inside, so a little guy can ride around in Gnaw's head. I especially appreciate this, since I miss the absurdity of Grax riding around in Skullcruncher's mouth. The bot mode is nice, too, witha spot-on head sculpt.
My only issue is the shark face and arms attach to the bot's ankles instead of its back. This gives the bot an almost Throttlebot amount of heel kibble, while leaing an almost prefectly flast back, which doesn't suit the bot's overall chubby look.
TR Kickback is the biggest dissapointment. I still have my G1 Kickback, which is a pretty efficient design. The bot head becomes the insect head; the 2 bot arms split to become the 4 insect forelimbs.
TR Kickback has separate parts for each mode. A nicely sculpted grasshopper head folds like a helmet over the bot head in insect mode. The modes share antennae. although the insect head looks nice, this results in a very tiny bot head, with overly large antennae.
The bot arms fold underneath the insect mode, and are separate from the insect forelegs. However, the upper arms are the same purple as the forelegs, so when you look at the insect from the side, all you see is a mesh of purple parts, with some of them coming points; these are the forelegs. The bot wrists/fists have black kibble covering them, and form a lump that sticks out of the insects back. On non-grasshopper insects, this might look like a thorax or something but here, it just gets in the way.
The insect forelegs fold onto the bot's back, and aren't really in the way, but the wings are attached to the same pieces, so instead of coming from the bot's shoulders like the G1 toy, the wings come from the backpack, and dont really look like they come from the torso.
The advantage of this is modern bot arm articulation: ball jointed shoulders and elbows. The cost is all these parts getting in each others' way, and a total loss of foreleg articulation.
The TR does have better bot legs/insect rear legs than the G1 toy. Half of the insect legs fold into the bot legs, like 30 years ago. But, the legs fold in half, so they store in only the lower part of the bot legs. This allows for articulated bot legs, which have ball joints in the knees as well as the hips.
Opening the yellow panel on the chest reveals a pair of TM pegs, so a little guy can ride the grasshopper around. However, this is more a seat than a cockpit. The yellow panel stays open to form the back rest; the TM does not fit inside Kickback.
Kickback my be the most dissapointing insect themed TF since Prime: Airachnid, and I haven't had a better version of Airachnid sitting on my shelf for 30 years.
Alleged "poems"
that don't follow a rhyme scheme
are not poetry
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This is exactly how I've paid for all the Headmasters I've bought recently. Or maybe I just went nuts with the Marvel figures last year because there were almost no Transformers worth buying between January and November. Same difference, I guess.
