Dave's Transformers Studio Series Rant: Core Wave 1

Ravage (Block Mode)
Shockwave (H-tank)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Studio/Core1

Case assortment may be equal numbers of both, or slightly more
Shockwaves, I have yet to see an unambiguously fresh case put out so Ravage
may simply outsell Shockwave. Wave 2's only new figure is a Spike Witwicky
(TFtM) Exo-Suit, so if there is a shortage of Ravage they might intend for
him to be the casemate for Spike.

CAPSULES

$11 at Walmart.

Ravage: Basically an accessory for #83 Soundwave. He even comes with a
piece of Soundwave's gun. A bit small and fragile even for Core Class,
though. Mildly recommended.

Shockwave: And then some whiplash...either there was an accident with a
shrink ray, or this is not meant to be even roughly to scale with the rest of
the Studio Series. But it's a decent size for Core, well-articulated and
detailed, and it can even fake a second vehicle mode. Recommended.

RANT:

Packaging: After a few years of only Deluxe/Voyager/Leader toys (and
some store exclusive two-packs), they finally added a Core Class, with a new
style of packaging unlike Kingdom's Core Class, and also dropping the
numbering. Other Studio toys released at the same time and in new packaging
style (specifically, Coronation Starscream) retain the numbering scheme, so
they probably just decided to not use the numbers on Core, for whatever
reason. (The next unused non-TFtM number is #86, which they might have
planned to skip anyway, making these #87 and #88...if those are also skipped
and we get a #89, then the numbers might have been assigned but not put on
the packaging.)
In addition to missing the number, the Core packaging doesn't list a
scene or provide even a short bio. However, both of these are clearly from
the Fall of Cybertron scene.
Anyway, as part of Hasbro's efforts to reduce non-recyclables in their
packaging (not that anyone around here will take cardboard for recycling),
the blister cards seen in Kingdom have been replaced by open-window boxes
with hangtags that have a similar general shape to blister cards, but
smaller. The back part is 7.5" (19cm) tall, while the front box part is
4.25" (11cm) tall. The package is 3.75" (9cm) wide and the box part is 1.5"
(3.5cm) deep. So it's shorter and narrower than the Kingdom Core Class
cardbacks, and slightly less deep than the blisters. The window part is a
rectangle with the upper right and lower left corners truncated (so it's a
very irregular hexagon), 1.75" (4.5cm) tall and 2.5" (6cm) wide. No plastic
window, and some of the accessories could potentially be pulled out by
someone with thin enough fingers and a sufficiently mischievous nature...so
just about any child left unsupervised for a moment.
The box part has a simplified version of the trade dress seen on other
boxes, minus the number, with art of the character on both sides (more of a
closeup on the left, with the Core Class label and other trade dress
elements). The right side art does continue onto the tab once you open the
box, although it's still not quite the complete piece. The tab part has the
character against their backdrop, and the inner tray is cardstock with a
small version of their scene. Unlike the larger boxes, the inner tray is not
made to be a display backdrop. The back of the box/card is slightly more
than half legalese, since they can't get rid of that. So, instead they got
rid of character information, there's just renders of the two modes, the
number of transformation steps, and their name on a reddish brown label in
front of a red-scale version of their background image. The instructions and
multilingual safety warning are loose behind the inner card tray.
To emphasize, these are small and look smaller. I almost missed them
the first time I saw them on the shelf, because I was expecting something
larger.

DECEPTICON: RAVAGE
Assortment: F3138
Altmode: Storage Block
Transformation Difficulty: 11 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
Movie: Bumblebee
Scene: The Fall of Cybertron

Packaging: Two ties hold the beast mode to the tray in a leaping pose
(more or less, but the legs aren't really held in place much), while the
accessories are held along the bottom edge of the tray to reduce the chances
of being pulled out by tiny fingers. The Soundwave gun tip is held by one
tie, and there's two ties each on Ravage's hip guns and back-mounted rocket
pod.
The backdrop is not just a segment of the same "under the overpass" art
used on other Bumblebee movie figures from the Cybertron scene, it's a new
piece inspired by that locale, with a number of shadowy and kinda generic
combatants in the scene (one looks like Evergreen Bumblebee's car mode,
despite that not appearing in the movie).

Beast Mode: A decent robot panther with weird muttonchops, although I
think the "fur" coming off the jowls was intended to look correct when the
mouth is open all the way. In addition to small guns on the hips (not chunky
G1 style missiles), he gets a sort of hunchback effect from a small rocket
pod that plugs into his back between the front shoulders. The eyes face
forwards rather than being on the sides of the head, which admittedly is a
more proper placement for a predator.
Significantly smaller than even Kingdom Core Class, although that's
inevitable since it has to be able to fold up and fit in Soundwave's chest.
3.25" (8cm) from snout to tail tip and 1.5" (4cm) tall to the top of the
rocket pod, it looks like it would lose to Rattrap's beast mode. A mix of
dark warm gray, silvery light gray, and some accents in red, white, and
yellow. The back, rear pelvis, tail, lower limbs (but not paws), and hip
weapons are silvery gray plastic. The rest is dark gray-brown plastic.
There's red paint on the sides of the head and the stripe down the
center of the top of the head, with metallic bluish silver paint details on
the sides. The eyes are yellow. There's silver at the back of the head, on
the business end of the rocket pod, and a stripe along the front top of the
rocket pod. The forelegs have printed white and red label-like patterns with
tiny pale violet Decepticon symbols on the thighs. The rear thighs are
mostly painted/printed white on the outer face, with a thin red stripe down
the center of the lower half.
The neck is hinged (mostly for transformation) and can look down, the
jaw is hinged to open. All four hips are restricted ball joints, with enough
play to get around pegs and stuff for transformation. The forelegs have
hinge knees, fixed ankles, and snap-on hinge toe/paw hinges (they are easy to
pop off). The hind legs have hinge knees, SUPER stiff hinge ankles, an the
same sort of snap-on paws. The tail is hinged to move up and down, with a
locking position pointed straight up.
There's 3mm sockets on the front back (for the rocket pod), belly (for
Soundwave's add-on gun), the rear thighs (for the hip guns), and flanking the
base of the tail (kinda blocked in this mode, mostly for block mode).
The rocket pod is pretty small and easy to lose, as are the skinny hip
guns (they're an inch/2.5cm long and have 2mm diameter tips). If you don't
like the hunchback look, the rocket pod can also go on the belly (where it
goes in altmode anyway), leaving room for the big gun on the back.
On the topic of the big gun, I suspect they ran the numbers and decided
that the budgets worked better if they included Soundwave's gun barrel with
Ravage, since anyone buying Soundwave was going to buy Ravage anyway. It's
got a 3mm peg on it so that it can attach to Ravage's belly (or on top of the
block mode), but it's clearly meant to just be given to Soundwave as soon as
you own both toys. Dark gray-brown plastic mostly painted silver, 1.5" (4cm)
long. The back end is a 4mm peg that goes into the center of Soundwave's
shoulder weapon so that it can be used as a hand cannon instead, the tip is a
3mm stud. While it has some slightly different details to keep with the live
action aesthetic, it's definitely inspired by the plug-in "missile" that
formed the front end of Soundwave's G1 gun. (Unfortunately, the one 3mm
socket on Soundwave is covered up in vehicle mode, so you can't store the
piece there.)

Transformation: Mostly it's just about getting the head folded down and
the legs folded so that some tiny pegs on the body go into tiny (like, 1mm
diameter on the forelegs, a bit wider on the hindlegs) sockets. There's a
bit of clever folding in the rear torso, where the "bones" of the hips fold
down and then the butt folds down on a different joint against them. You do
need to remove the weapons before transforming, put the back pod on the
stomach right away, and wait to put the hip missiles into sockets on the root
of the tail.
One issue during transformation is that if you're just sort of feeling
out where things go, the paws have a tendency to pop off if you bend them a
little too far.