Dave's Transformers Legacy Rant: Voyager Wave 1

Bulkhead (Army Van)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Legacy/VBulkhead

Ships with a repackaged Blaster. I added the new QR code bio note info
at the end of Blaster's review.

http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/VBlaster to go see it.

CAPSULE

$30 price point.

Bulkhead: Decent in both modes, but the transformation is kinda
frustrating. Probably the most telling problem is that I really didn't feel
like finishing this review. After a few more times transforming I did get
the hang of it, but I gotta say this is not a toy that gives a good first
impression. Mildly recommended.

RANT

Packaging: Okay, all new lower-waste packaging with no plastic window
and plenty of opportunities for toy damage. They also finally found a way
around the limitations of multilingual packaging by shifting all the bio note
stuff online. Okay, they did that before in RiD, and with the Cyber Key
Codes in Cybertron, and...okay, but this time it's QR codes, pointing to URLs
that are deliberately too long to actually display easily. The QR code
itself is embedded in an Autobot symbol, with a graphic next to it evocative
of G1 techspec lines (but unrelated to the actual tech specs) and "SCAN"
above them in Cybertronian letters.
At the top is a semi-animated render of the character, then their
faction symbol, name, and faction. Next is a block that has details about
the character, although which details do tend to vary, I've found. On
Bulkhead, it's Alt Mode, Function, Special Unit, and Origin Universe (because
Legacy is explicitly a dimensional crossover series). The next block lists
their Signature Weapon and a short bit of text about it. Then there's the
bio note, which could have been longer since there's no space limitations,
but it's just a sentence or maybe two. Finally, the new streamlined
techspecs, using the symbols for strength, intelligence, speed, and fireblast
introduced in those $100 Amazon sets during Titans Return.
In terms of shape, these are open-window boxes with faceting to remove a
lot of the parallel lines, similar to how the Shattered Glass boxes did it.
The window part is smaller, to reduce the chances of someone reaching in and
pulling out accessories, and the box itself is barely larger than a Kingdom
Deluxe box. When it's facing you, the bottom and back are rectangular. The
back is 9" (23cm) tall, 6.5" (16.5cm) wide, while the bottom is 6.5" (16.5cm)
wide and 3" (7.5cm) deep. The left side is at a right angle to the back and
bottom, and is a right trapezoid (time to review your geometry!), 9" (23cm)
tall at the back edge and 8" (20cm) tall at the front edge. The front is
parallel to the back, narrowing to a little over 5" (13cm) wide at the top
edge. The top slopes down to meet that, and the hole takes up about an inch
(2.5cm) of the top side and 3" (8cm) (in a jagged edge) of the front side,
with a width around 3.5" (9cm). Rather than trying to have a single surface
on the right side, it's two triangles. A right triangle with sides as the
bottom and back edges, and an isoceles triangle with its obtuse angle at the
front corner.
The trade dress is mostly shades of blue and purple (some cool and some
warm), with some faux silver and neon green. Kinda eye-hurting, to be
honest. The box art on the front (vehicle) and right side (headshot in the
isoceles and full body robot in the right triangle) looks like renders fed
through a filter to look vaguely like hand-drawn art. A first impression of
colored pencils of conte crayons, but on closer inspection the lines are too
clean. The middle left of the front face has the nameplate, with the faction
symbol, home universe, and name on a neon green background.
The edges of the right side are picked out with lines of white-silver in
an upside down 2 shape, with the character's name in Cybertronian next to
their head closeup. The "heading into heavy metal band logo" territory
Legacy logo is on the top, the bottom of the front side, and the bottom of
the right side. The right side has a group shot of several faction members
in one of those movie poster style "not actually a group shot" things. On
the Autobot toys, it's Optimus Prime looking over his shoulder at us with
Earth in the background at top, then Hot Rod, Arcee (Prime), Blaster, and
Bulkhwad, with Cybertron in the lower right.
The back panel has the usual renders of both modes, with neon green and
white bent chevrons pointing from robot to the number of steps to the
vehicle. The QR code is in the lower left, with the usual legalese at the
bottom of the back panel and the entirety of the bottom panel.
Importantly, they've given up on the assortment numbers like WFC-K21,
there's just the F3055/F2991 numbers on the bottom.
Inside, the inner trays are cardboard folded to help stabilize the
irregular shape of the outer box. The front face has mostly purple
patterning with a light purple Cybertron in the upper right corner, plus blue
and red "confetti" sort of shards. The figure and accessories are generally
attached via the plastic "sock ties" Hasbro's been using for a while, not
rattan strings. (My guess is that their "low waste" advantage is countered
by "high labor cost" so they don't use them as often.)
The instructions have mottled purple and blue backgrounds, dull purple
main lines, and bright blue used to highlight parts and motions. There are
no cosells on the instructions or anywhere on the packaging. There's the
usual massively multilingual warning sheets in the box as well.

AUTOBOT: BULKHEAD
Assortment:
Altmode: Army Van
Transformation Difficulty:
Previous Name Use: Energon, TF:A, TF:Prime
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Heavy Munitions
Special Unit: Team Prime
Origin Universe: Prime
Signature Weapon: Energon Gatling Blaster - Rapidly fires rounds of Energon
blasts

STR 9 INT 3 SPD 4 FRB 8

Bulkheads may be a gentle giant most of the time, but this Wrecker is
always ready to kick some tailpipe.

Packaging: One tie on each wrist, a double tie across the chest, a
double tie across the shins, and a single tie across the ankles. The mace
head weapon and gatling blaster are each at the bottom corners (where they're
harder for people to steal out of the open window), and the shield is on the
back of the card held by one tie.
The render on the back of the box has the shield inside-out. The faux
cloth patterning should be on the inside, with the armor plate and scraper
blade bits need to be on the outside, as shown in the instructions.

Robot Mode: As others (such as David Willis) have noted, he may be from
the Prime universe, but his design is solidly neo-G1. By that, I mean the
way that Prime Wars and War for Cybertron took the G1 animation designs but
made them blockier, generally removing the Floro Dery style rounded parts.
It feels like a retool of Solar Storm Grappel in some ways, boxy even by
neo-G1 standards. The head is reasonably close to the animation design from
Prime, at least. There's wheels on the shoulders, on the boots, and a couple
of spare tires folded together behind the head. Big boxy cab chest, all flat
surfaces with minor detailing, including a winch on the front bumper. The
sprue removal marks on the top of the shield really stand out, they didn't
polish these down enough.
6.5" (16.5cm) tall, in several shades of "military" green and various
silver and silvery gray colors, plus some clear bright blue. The cab chest
is actually all clear blue plastic with a lot of paint, rather than casting
the windows as separate pieces, and the Energon gatling blaster is also clear
blue. A darker drab green plastic is used on the feet, the backs of the
boots, the shield (aside from its handle), and the collar area. A slightly
less dark green plastic (but darker than the paint on the chest) is used for
the head, part of the backpack strut setup, part of the backplate, the
shoulders, the forearms, the thighs, and the boot fronts/sides. A slightly
metalswirled medium-light gray plastic is used for the biceps, upper pelvis,
and ankle joints, while a more matte and slightly lighter gray plastic is
found on the fists, lower pelvis, and mace weapon. Finally, all the tires
are black, as are the shoulder roots and inner hinge pieces, part of the
backpack harness, a bit inside the torso, and the hip joint piece (including
a bit of thigh skeleton).
The chest is mostly painted kelly green, noticeably brighter than either
of the green plastics, with matte black trim, wiper blades, side mirrors,
bumper, and grille. The headlights are metallic blue and there's a small red
Autobot symbol printed above the grille. Gunmetal paint is used for the
face, vent details on the fronts of the shoulders, and about half the surface
of the Energon gatling gun (more of a vulcan rotary cannon, really). Silver
is used on the chin, almost the entire outer surface of the mace weapon,
almost the entire outer surfaces of the thighs (there's a little bit at the
top of each that is gunmetal), and the kneecaps.
The head is on a ball joint that can look down slightly and turn freely,
but not look up. There's a smooth swivel between upper and lower pelvis (no
ratchet joints at all, in fact). The shoulders are universal joints, with
bicep swivels where the gray pieces meet the shoulder blocks, hinge elbows,
and swivel wrists. Universal joint hips and concealed swivels inside the
thighs, hinge knees. The ankles have limited forwards/backwards hinge
motion, transformation hinges between toe and heel halves, and the now-usual
sideways hinges to let the feet stay flat.
Apparently one of Legacy's gimmicks is All The Pegs, because this toy is
positively covered in 5mm sockets, including in places where they don't
really work well. Each of the six wheels has a 5mm socket in the center of
the hub, but since it spins with the wheel they're only erally good for
things you want hanging down. The fists hold 5mm pegs, there's sockets on
the outside faces of each forearm, on the inner faces of each forearm, one on
the back, one on the shield, three on the mace (two are molded but too
shallow to hold anything), one on the side of each boot on the fenders for
the wheels, two on the back of each boot, one on the underside of each heel,
and one on either side of the gun (actually, it's a 5mm hole all the way
through, but trying to fit a 5mm shaft through it strikes me as a good way to
get the plastic fused together). There's also some 5mm pegs on the shield
(a fixed on for storage on the back or vehicle mode, an Armada-style "dead
hardpoint" peg on each side panel, and a folding peg for use in shield
mode), and half-pegs on the backs of the boots that are only useful in
vehicle mode (the weapons store on these pegs, they don't use any of the
sockets). There's a 3mm socket on the back of the pelvis, and one on either
side of the small backpack chunk that has the spare tires. The gun has a 3mm
peg on either side above the grip peg, and that's how it attaches over the
shoulder. Seems a bit flimsy considering how many 5mm sockets are otherwise
availble on the rest of the figure.
The gatling cannon has a standard bundled six-barrel vulcan rotary
arrangement in front, with the very tip painted gunmetal but the barrels left
clear blue. At the midpoint there's a crossbar with a 5mm hole through it,
and what looks to be an "aura" molded in the spaces between. It more of the
gun was painted, the aura might be more convincing, but as it stands it just
looks like a solid weird detail. A little under 2" (5cm) long overall, and
while it can be held as a pistol it does look better over the shoulder. It
can store reasonably well in a lot of places on the robot mode, or inside the
shield.
The mace is a shell that is hinged in front and closes over either fist,
with a diameter of 1.25" (3cm) including the collars aruond the sockets. The
top, front, and bottom sockets are real, while the ones on either side are
decorative and too shallow to hold pegs. There's no decent robot mode
storage for the mace, the closest the instructions come is a suggestion to
put the shield on the mace hand and thereby conceal the mace a bit.
The shield is a three-panel folding affair that becomes the cloth top of
the truck bed in vehicle mode. As a shield, it turns inside out, so the
front facing is metal panels with a series of parallel blades along the
bottom edge and a riot shield style window. Technically, the sides need to
be folded back until they hit stoppers, forming three sides of a rectangular
box and completely sheathing the arm. The result looks less like a shield
and more like a gauntlet weapon. If you leave the panels spread out a bit,
it looks more like a proper shield. It has a hinged black peg that lets it
be held either armor side out or cloth side out (as seen on the box), and the
panel hinges snap into a few stable positions. The whole thing is 3" (7.5cm)
tall, and from 2" (5cm) wide to 3.5" (9cm) wide depending on how the panels
are set. In addition to the almost-at-center black peg, there's a fixed 5mm
peg meant for attaching to the figure's back, but you can also use it to
attach to one of the shoulder wheels for more of a cloak effect with the
cloth side out. The 5mm pegs on the cloth sides of the side panels are
really for vehicle mode, to attach more weapons and stuff.