TransFormers: Beast Wars


	Megatron Since TransFormers began, Megatron has lead the Decepticons (except, of course, when he became Galvatron), and now he leads the Predacons. Megatron's main weapon is a T-Rex head-shaped Paralysing liquid/laser gun (which is actually a water-pistol!), but he also has rocket launchers attached to his thighs. On the one hand, having one T-Rex head-shaped hand and one tail/claw shaped hand is completely daft, but the fact that one is a function water pistol almost makes up for it. The helmet/mask thing is interesting, too...
	Blackarachnia Technically part of the Beast Machines line, this is the first really good incarnation of Blackarachnia. The original Beast Wars version looked awful in either mode, the Transmetal 2 verion looked top-heavy and had a very strange head. Still, this one isn't perfect. Spider mode looks excellent (but might have benefitted from less transparent plastic), but the robot mode seems to have struggled to look as human as possible, to the extent that the supposed robot's head has hair, and she appears to be wearing makeup. Some sacrifices have been made in the robot to get the spider mode looking believable. This is mainly evident in the arms, which are overly long and have very long-fingered hands. Also, with the forearms made of soft, rubbery plastic, the middle fingers on mine have bent out of shape. Still, spider mode is believable - even if the front legs are a little on the short side - and the fang twitching action is actually kinda worrying. One interesting feature of the robot mode is the armour on the head, which opens to reveal six eyes. The light piping isn't particularly efficient - possibly because the eyes are so much smaller than others - but it kinda works.
	Nemesis Prime This evil, dark repaint of Beast Wars' Big Convoy became yet another Decepticon who bears the legend Nemesis Prime. Like the original, he's a woolly mammoth, but unlike the original, he has bloodied tusks and evil red eyes! The same gimmicks are here - pull the ears back and the tusks move, pull a switch on the animal's head and the trunk lifts - and are fairly cool. For once a good use of rubber parts in a TransFormer! Transformation is rather more complex that many other Beast Wars toys, even though the mammoth parts essentially just form a shell around the robot. All sorts of parts hinge out and flip round and this is the first TransFormer I've picked up since RID Megatron/Galvatron which had be running for the instructions... which didn't help much as they deal with changing from mammoth to robot, and the damned thing comes packaged in robot mode. Anyway. Robot mode gimmicks abound, from the shin-mounted rocket launchers (very similar to BW Megatron's hip mounted launchers) and little red stick things that flip out from his wrists. The mammoth's back and the top of the head forms a massive double-barrelled missile launcher, and the insides of the mammoth's head have painted details of anime-style missile pods. This incarnation of Nemesis Prime is the only one - as far as I'm aware - to come with the Dead Matrix - an evil version of the Autobots' Matrix of Leadership, which is supposed to destroy the real thing if they come into contact.
	Optimus Primal Optimus Prime hasn't always been the Autobot leader, having passed the mantle to (supposedly) Ultra Magnus and Rodimus Prime. Anyway, Primal is the 'Maximal General'. His main weapons are rocket launchers concealed in his left arm and his back (very cool spring-loaded release mechanism), a pair of swords and a morning-star shaped like a strange skull. Like Megatron, Primal has a strange 'mask' thing which can cover his robot face. I can't figure out why these have been included, and I don't think they're used or mentioned in the CG TV series.
	Lio Convoy I picked up the Robot Masters version of Lio Convoy as soon as it became available because I thought I'd missed out on this beast forever... Little did I know that he'd be available in mint condition at Memorabilia, a convention at the NEC in Birmingham (and, coincidentally, on eBay a couple of days later, for only £15 more, plus shipping!). The Robot Masters version is a little over half the size of the original, with slightly less impressive paintwork (though the metallic look of the body beats the plain plastic of the original, the original is the one with the golden mane), but an overall improvement in solidity and posability. He also seems better armed because he has a handgun and attachments while the original just has the flip-out missile launchers in the lion's mane and the robot's wrists. Both have the extendible claws housed in the lion's front legs. Transformation is almost identical in both apart from a couple of key points (stowing of the robot head and the way the robot's arms fit in), but the larger version has an extra couple of neat little features. On the lion head, a button beneath part of the mane flips out two missle launchers (wheras, on the RM version, two of the gun attachments can plug in to the mane), and a button which protrudes through the mane can cause one section to spin round as a weapon. The smaller version has the spinning section, but it's not activated by a button. Lastly, while the mouth on the RM version can open, it's not operated by a button, again hidden in the mane on the larger version. I was slightly surprised to find a small rub-symbol on the inside of the Matrix annexe door and, curiously, the lion's tail is attached the opposite way round between the two versions. Whether this is an accident or an intentional change, I don't know...
	Black Lio Convoy By the looks of things, despite the black/grey/metallic turquoise colourscheme, this is not a Nemesis-type evil clone, rather a black repaint like the Nucleon Quest Powermaster Prime of old. Still, he looks very nice all the same. This is one of those models that you'd never expect to see, ever. I was surprised enough to find the original Lio Convoy, but finding this on Ebay (along with Flash Lio Convoy, which I didn't bother with) was incredibly fortunate. More so, because he'd only ever been used for display purposes, so he's in almost perfect condition (apart from a bit of dust). There's one small problem, in that the shoulder section doesn't lock into place as well on this as it does on the normal one, but such mold issues are common, and I find the original a little bit too stiff. Not much more to say... he's identical to the one above, and there's shortly to be a Robot Masters version of him! Lio Convoy Face-off!
	Longrack As soon as I discovered there was a Beast Wars TransFormer who turned into a giraffe (thanks to Hasbro reusing the name they reworked an Armada toy for their Cybertron line), I was intrigued. Everywhere I looked (in the UK) if they'd had it, it was sold out... Until Ellis Models did a stock take at New Year 2006, and listed one. I took my time deciding, looking over as many pictures as I could find to help me make up my mind, then bought it. Giraffe mode is fantastic, and has a little gimmick of its own - push in the tongue and the eyes move. Transformation is easy, but for a few points where parts have to move around other parts and there's not much room for it. Robot mode is, frankly, decidedly awkward. Large parts of giraffe 'shell' cover one arm, and the other has the giraffe's neck and head protruding from the shoulder. However, the gimmick is very impressive - a trigger on the giraffe neck causes the right arm's claw to shoot out quite a way and, if the claw is opened, it closes thanks to the abrupt stop. His secondary gimmick is a pair of missile launchers, one located in the knee of each giraffe foreleg (mounted on his back in robot mode). These are quite powerful, but the triggers - on each thigh - are very easy to hit accidentally during transformation. Longrack is also amazingly posable, partly thanks to the 'wheels'/spurs on the backs of his feet, which act as stabilisers. Some of the giraffe 'shell' pieces can get in the way, but it's been quite well designed to avoid this as much as possible. While his legs look great in giraffe mode, they don't look quite so good in robot mode... but I'd guess they didn't have too many options.
	Stampy (Sutampii) OK, so buying Longrack basically gave me permission to pick up others from the crazier, later, Japanese-only Beast Wars series... Stampy being a prime example. He turns into a white rabbit. I'd have to say that his animal mode is better than his robot mode. Partly because two whopping great halves of the rabbit's head are the robot's hands, and so it loses out because of that... Although, looking more closely, it appears that hands are molded within the rabbit head. Stampy gets some credit for the fact that the rabbit ears are blade weapons in robot mode, and that there's a gimmick (albeit a weak one) where the arms move slightly when you twitch his tail. This is actually supposed to come into play when he transforms into 'weapon mode' - he actually has an official third mode, which is a hand-held weapon for the larger BW models... Sadly, it's completely unconvincing. Perhaps it would make more sense if I'd ever seen the TV series...
	Break (Bureiku) Picked up largely because I wanted to get a good look at the worst end of Beast Wars - Break is essentially a Shell-Former - a little action figure (which barely looks robotic, even) inside an animal shell... Kind of like a more advanced form of Gen-1's Pretenders, in some ways. Despite the awkward shell pieces making him tricky to balance, Break is quite a posable little fellow. Even in penguin mode, his head, flippers and feet are mobile. In robot mode, the shell pieces on his shoulders clash with those on his arms, and the arms' movement is heavily restricted around the body. Break is certainly no award-winning action figure... but he's a lot of fun, and pretty darned cute. Like Stampy, he can also become a hand-held weapon for the larger models and, also like Stampy, it's completely unconvincing.
	Heinlad Despite my initial dislike of this figure, it soon became something of a Holy Grail for me. Blame Studio Ghibli, and their wacky anime Pom Poko, which features a different kind of transforming Tanuki. This is a pretty decent model with some very interesting quirks. To begin with, he has a clock in his chest. It's not just molded detail, it's a working alarm clock - just insert a couple of batteries and you can be woken up by a transforming raccoon-dog. This could get pretty infuriating, though, as you have to transform him to robot mode to turn off the alarm (by pushing the robot's head down). I'd imagine that anyone who actually tried this as an alarm clock would end up leaving it in robot mode. Next up, as with most of this line, Heinlad has a 'spark crystal'... embedded in what becomes the right testicle of the Tanuki. I kid you not. Finally, he comes with two accessories - a saki bottle, and what may be a promisory note (an IOU - legend has it Tanuki never pay their debts). These two accessories combine to form a gun for the robot. Along with all this weirdness, Heinlad is very poseable in both robot mode and Tanuki mode - he's even able to go down on all fours and raise his head! He's easily one of the most fun figures to come out of the Beast Wars offshoots.
	Mach Kick While his robot mode may be quite awkward-looking, Mach Kick's alternate mode - a horse - manages to look good and feature some poseable joints on all four legs. The main problem with robot mode is the huge amount of horse-shell kibble that sticks out of one shoulder, his back, and both hips. His legs, too, are not without their problems, due to the strange way the robot feet are formed. And while 'animal head as robot hand' works for Megatron, on Mach Kick it looks like something of an afterthought, because he has a large and somewhat incongruous red claw that pops out of the horse head's lower jaw. Had it been made to be the horse's lower jaw, it might have made more sense... as it is, it just looks weird, and the telescopic wrist does nothing to help either. Mach Kick comes armed with a short axe, to which the horse's nylon fibre tail is attached. The robot's head also has a nylon fibre 'pony tail', which is an interesting effect, but not something one would expect from a robot. Overall, I must admit I quite like Mach Kick... somehow, despite everything that's wrong with him, he manages to look pretty cool, and he is very poseable once you figure out his strange joints, and take into account the lack of movement in his 'feet'. Mach Kick's spark crystal is embedded in his left thigh.
	Silverbolt Portrayed in the TV show as noble to a fault, Silverbolt cuts a fine figure of a wolf/falcon hybrid in beast mode. The detailing on the mold is second to none, and the paint job, while sparse as far as the robot goes, is very effective. Transformation is almost ridiculously simple, and yet robot mode shows very little sign of this alternate mode (aside from the wings and the beast mode's back legs hanging off the robot's elbows!). He comes armed with two club/axe/feather things that can either plug into his hands, or into the launchers on each wingtip. In either mode, pulling on the beast tail will launch the missiles as the wings swing forward. Despite all the beast mode kibble and very awkwardly-shaped feet, Silverbolt is probably easier to pose that Mach Kick. Robot mode could really have done with a bit more paintwork (this model did come out in the TransMetals line, and yet sports no chroming), but the molded details are still very impressive. Oddly, Silverbolt doesn't have the usual spark crystal, but his does have a fluorescent orange blob in his gut, surrounded by what look like sharp teeth. His face is oddly reminiscent of Galaxy Force Fangwolf/Cybertron Snarl...