Dave's Transformers Legacy Rant: Deluxe Wave 2

Decepticon Wild Rider (Sports Car)
Prime Universe Knock-Out (Sports Car)
Predacon Tarantulas (Spider)
Elita-1 (Cybertronian Car)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Legacy/Deluxe2

Given that all the store exclusives in Legacy that I've been reviewing
for the last month or so (Speedia 500 and Wreck N' Rule) lacked the QR codes,
I almost forgot to check the codes on these!

CAPSULES

$25 price point (I got mine at my local comic shop for the same price
that I much later saw the for at Walmart and Target).

Decepticon Wild Rider: Decent for a limb bot, although it suffers from
copying the rather dull animation model coloration in robot mode.
Recommended.

Prime Universe Knock-Out: Extensive and effective "retool" of Studio
Series Jazz, although it lacks the proper personality in robot mode.
Recommended.

Predacon Tarantulas: The head is too big and there's a few stability
issues, but otherwise a solid update of a character who hasn't gotten a new
mold since the 1990s. Recommended.

Elita-1: My main aesthetic concern about the vehicle mode has been
allayed, although the wheels don't roll well at all. Pretty good job getting
close to animation model in robot mode, given that the animation model was
really not designed with actual transformation in mind. Recommended.

Want to know which of these I think is the best? So would I.
Seriously, they all have different pluses and minuses, I can't really say one
of them is definitely the pick of the wave, sorry.

RANTS

Packaging: Same as wave 1, still using plastic hang tags instead of the
cardboard hangers some of the store exclusives have.

DECEPTICON: DECEPTICON WILD RIDER
Assortment: F3030
Altmode: Sports Car
Transformation Difficulty: 13 steps
Previous Name Use: None (all others are Wildrider, although a Speed Stars
Wild Rider was planned for 2011 and never released, but at least
he's not Brake-Neck anymore)
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Warrior
Special Unit: Stunticons
Origin Universe: G1
Signature Weapon: Dual Energon Stattershot Blasters - Fires Energon laser
beams at wide range.

STR 6 INT 6 SPD 7 FRB 8

Wild Rider lives up to his name. He's a bit of a loose cannon. When he
hits the road, he drives to destroy. Combines with other Stunticons to form
Menasor.

Packaging: Four plastic ties hold the robot mode into the inner tray,
and the accessories are wrapped up in tissue behind the fold of the left side
of the tray. There's a lot of backpack stuffed through a hole in the tray,
and getting it out pulls the backpack apart. There's no clear picture of how
the backpack is supposed to look, but you can guess it from the panel of the
instructions showing how to undo it.
The instructions have multiple errors documented on TFWiki. Possibly a
result of safety retooling being done after the instructions were drawn, and
no one remembered to fix them. Perhaps the instructions on Breakdown (which
will be retooled from this) will be fixed? Anyway, the various missing tabs
are not necessary, and the fact that the pegs on the heels won't really stay
in their intended sockets doesn't really matter...it's more of a guide than a
connection, really.

Labeled as 2 of 5 on Menasor.

Robot Mode: As with Drag Strip, it suffers for adhering too closely to
the animation model, so it's pretty visually boring with only minimal paint
below the level of the chest. Unlike Drag Strip, it has rather a lot of
backpack that the animation model just made to vanish, although if you spread
the wheel parts out all the way it looks like a flight pack. He does have
the weird pointy cone ears from the animation model.
5" (12.5cm) tall and mostly very dark gray with some silver and red.
The guns and wheels are black plastic, the back half of the torso and the
windshield hanging down in back are clear red plastic. Yeah, pins going
through clear plastic are worrisome. Everything else is very dark cool gray
plastic.
The face is painted dark red with silver eyes. The right and left sides
of the chest are silver with blue rectangles on them, with a silver bar
connecting the two sides and matte black on a rectangle under that (really
hard to tell under normal lighting). With the arms down at the sides, the
fronts of the arms are mostly painted gloss red, brighter than the face.
There's dark metallic garnet stripes along the outer faces of the arms and
boots, and the wheel hubs are silver. The guns have silver on the scopes and
the necks of the barrels.
Swivel neck and waist, universal joint shoulders, bicep swivels, single
higne elbows. The wrists have inward-swinging soft-ratcheting transformation
hinges. Universal joint hips, thigh swivels, single hinge knees (there's
more hinges inside the boots for transformation, but they're properly locked
down in this mode). At the point where the shin fronts connect to the feet
are sideways and front-back hinges. The front fenders on the backpack are on
hinges that let them lift to the sides and look like a hoverpack.
5mm sockets on the hands, the boot fronts in the upper outer corners
(these are used for connecting to Menasor's calves), and the lower ends of
the boot backs (for gun storage in vehicle mode, really). No sockets in the
soles of the feet. There's a 3mm socket in the back of the pelvis. There's
some studs on the heels that are closer to 4mm diameter, and they're supposed
to go into the screw holes on the robot's abdomen, but are a tiny bit too
wide, so it's more of a "rest on the surface of the hole as a guide point"
deal.
Unlike many guns intended to be pegged together or otherwise mounted
symmetrically, they are identical rather than being mirror images. Each has
a 5mm peg on the left side and a 5mm socket on the right side at the same
position. The grip peg is a few millimeters ahead of these socket and peg
pairs. The barrel tip is technically 3mm in diameter, but it's less than a
millimeter long at that size, so you really can't put Fire Blasts on it, even
really flexible ones. I'm not entirely sure why the guns are made to peg
side by side, since they don't get that close together on the car, unlike
Drag Strip's doubled guns. I suppose it could just be part of the Legacy
"make big weapons out of your weapons" design thing, even though they're not
Energon weapons.

Transformation: Fold the fists in and straighten the arms, then pull
open the chest and store the head inside. Raise the arms to the sides a bit
and rotate the waist 180 degrees. The boots open up so that the legs can
fold double at knee joints inside the boots, then shove the arms in at the
sides. It's a bit tricky to get that to work without Excessive Force. Then
it's just a matter of turning the backpack into the vehicle front end.
Probably the hardest part of going back to robot mode is getting the
windshield up, it helps to grip by the side edges and squeeze a bit.

Altmode: It's clearly based on the G1 altmode of a Ferrari 308 GTB, but
with enough changed to avoid licensing fees or trademark suits. A little bit
more angular, side windows are smooth with no border bits between A-pillar
and B-pillar, nose shorter, doors longer, rear side windows replaced by
louvres, wheel hubs have six spokes rather than five. There are molded side
windows, and in a bit of a nod to the G1 toy there's a shallow molded socket
in place of a rear license plate. It's too shallow to peg anything in, but
is a reference to the socket G1 Wildrider had for either Menasor's foot (or
fist) or the big dual-barrelled cannon each limb Stunticon could use in
vehicle mode.
A little over 5" (a little under 13cm) long, making it about 1:33
scale. Body is dark charcoal gray with a dark garnet stripe along each side,
and ruby red windshield and side windows. The windshield is actually two
layers of clear red plastic, so there's some tech details inside. The
windshield, roof, and side windows are clear red plastic, with charcoal gray
paint (good match) on the roof and the A-pillars. A warm purple Decepticon
symbol with no outline is printed on the hood, and the wheel hubs are painted
silver. No paint on the headlights or taillights.
The back of boot 5mm sockets are now on the top of the back end behind
the roof, and is where the guns are supposed to go. The front of boot
sockets are on the underside of the rear bumper and not particularly useful.
It rolls indifferently, and you have to fiddle with the feet on the underside
to get any ground clearance at all.

Menasor Mode: Yeah, this is the mode I expect most Wild Riders to spend
most of their display time in. From vehicle mode, fold up the windshield and
then bend the front end up 90 degrees. The 5mm sockets under the rear bumper
go onto pegs on the back of Menasor's leg, pushing in the purple button that
closes the panels on the shin. The slots in the front of the shoulders go
onto tabs at the lower corners of the leg back to help with holding it all in
place. Unlike Drag Strip, Wild Rider can go on either leg, they didn't make
the two legs slightly different just to enforce G1 cartoon accuracy there.
It takes a little work to get it snapped in firmly, and then it stays
put really well. Of course, it's on the back of the leg, but that's
animation-accurate. The hood of the car doesn't really touch the heel plate,
but since it lacks a sideways hinge to let it match the ankle joint, that's
for the best.