Dave's Transformers Legacy Rant: Core Class Wave 1

Skywarp (Kingdom Starscream redeco with new weapon)
Hot Rod (repackage of Kingdom version)
Iguanus (lizardy motorcycle)

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

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/CoreK2 - Starscream review
https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/CoreK4 - Hot Rod review

Rather than just append the new bio note thing to the Kingdom review,
I'll put the info into this review, along with packaging comments. Near as I
can tell (yes, I bought one), the Legacy version of the toy is the same as
the Kingdom version.

CAPSULES

$11.48 each at Walmart, although Target has been selling Studio Core
Class for $8.49 so it might be worth waiting for Target to get 'em.

Skywarp: Original mold was strongly recommended, but the excessively
thick paint on this one causes some issues. The new weapon isn't very good,
and even fails at its main job of being part of a combined weapon.
Recommended.

Hot Rod: Kingdom version was at the upper end of mildly recommended.
This one is the same toy in new (albeit more informative) packaging, so if
you didn't get Kingdom's version, it's mildly recommended.

Iguanus: Good robot mode that is a nice update to the character's
Pretender shell, interesting transformation, stupid scooter altmode. Still,
recommended.

RANT

There's a sort of unifying gimmick for this wave, in that all of their
weapons combine into a bigger sword, as seen in the card art for both
versions of Hot Rod. No Energon weapons, though, that seems to be reserved
for the larger Legacy toys.

Packaging: Studio Series Core was the first to go with the minimal
plastic packaging, and these follow suit, with the only plastic being the
"sock ties" that hold the figures to the backing cards and the reinforcement
of the peg-hanger hooks. The windows are relatively small jagged
sorta-rectangles about 2" (5cm) wide and slightly less than that tall.
There's no plastic over the windows, and I've seen reports of the weapons
being stolen out of the boxes by people with sufficiently slender fingers.
Fortunately, you can look in and see if the weapons are still there before
buying. Unfortunately, that doesn't help you if the weapons are gone from
the only ones in the store.
Like Studio Series Core, these are otherwise simple rectangular solid
boxes (4.25"/10.5cm tall) with taller back cards (7.5"/19cm tall) for
hang-tabs, they don't go with any of the weird shapes of larger Legacy
boxes. They're 3.75" (9.5cm) wide and 1.5" (3.5cm) deep.
The trade dress of purple, blue, and white ("silver") is retained. The
front side has vehicle mode art on the top tab part of the package, in the
same "vaguely kinda not-a-render" filter as Bulkhead had, the Legacy logo on
the top of the box part and the buttom of the front. A green tag with white
letters and faction symbol is below the logo on the box front. The top half
of the front is mostly the window, and the usual sideways Transformers logo
runs along the right edge of the front. The right side of the box (as it is
facing you) has a movie poster-ish group shot of the relevant faction. Hot
Rod has the same five as Bulkhead did, while Iguanus and Skywarp have their
own faces in the middle, Megatron's face looking left at the top, Drag Strip
below him, and Kickback's insect head at the bottom next to half of
Cybertron. The two side panels fit together into a single image of Optimus
and Megatron glaring at each other with a complete Cybertron at the bottom.
If you carefully cut off the flaps of two of the boxes you get a 4.25" tall
and 3.25" (8cm) wide card (the art extends onto the tabs by about a
centimeter, but for the Autobot side that's extra overlap) that will not
actually fit in any card holder, but I guess you can try putting it in a
cheap small picture frame. The left side of the box has art of robot mode,
somewhat restricted by the depth of the box. The top third of the back has
renders of both modes and the number of transformation steps, the rest is
legalese.
The inner trays are corrugated cardboard with top flaps folded forwards
and side flaps folded backwards to let them fit snugly in the box, and holes
cut through to allow for backpacks and heel spurs and the like as needed.
Because of space restrictions, there's no QR codes on the outside of the
package, so they moved the codes to the instruction sheets, which are in the
same colors as Bulkhead's. Oddly, Iguanus's instructions are folded over one
more time than the other two, as if the plan was to put them along the bottom
of a plastic blister. All three sets of instructions show how to assemble
the unnamed big sword, and show it held by the character whose instructions
it is.

DECEPTICON: SKYWARP
Assortment: F3011
Altmode: Jet
Transformation Difficulty: 17 steps (!!)
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: Gen:K
Function: Warrior
Special Unit: Seeker
Origin Universe: G1
Signature Weapon: Energon Warp Fork - Infuses teleportation ability with
Energon to unleash unstable energy.

STR 8 INT 6 SPD 4 FRB 7

Skywarp may not be too bright, but his teleportation ability makes him a
dangerous enemy.

Dude, INT 6 isn't stupid. And SPD 4 is hard to reconcile with being
both a jet and teleporting. It's not like they're being slavishly G1 here
either, his SPD was 10 in G1, 9 if you assume the Seeker techspecs were
swapped around (in which case his INT was 4). However, given that Iguanus
has the exact same numbers and those match G1 Iguanus, it looks like Skywarp
is being extra Geewunny and having his numbers grabbed from elsewhere
*again*. So, to go with "corrected G1," Skywarp should be:

STR 7 INT 4 SPD 9 FRP 7

Packaging: Two plastic ties on the robot mode, one around the Warp
Spork, it's difficult but not impossible to remove without cutting the tie.

Color Swaps: All the plastic is black.

Paint Apps: In robot mode, silver on the face, the shoulder scoops, and
the torso sides. Warm violet paint is slathered on the forearms, fists,
feet, and the horizontal tail pieces that are on the sides of the boots. The
violet paint is so thick that it interferes with some of transformation, it's
hard to rotate the tail pieces, and the forearm pegs are too thick now to
easily go into their slots on the wings. The fake cockpit windows on the
chest are painted golden yellow (maybe a touch towards apricot), and the eyes
are red.
In jet mode, the real cockpit is painted the same way as the fake one,
and the tops of the wings are printed with a purple stripe set back from the
leading edge, and Decepticon symbols in the rondel positions.

Mold Changes: He loses the shoulder cannonws and gets the Warp Fork,
which is a single piece of black plastic with thick red gloss paint on the
two "tines". The short central shaft has 3mm rods emerging from 5mm pegs, so
it can in theory be held by both kinds of fist. A mere 27mm long, it's
really just there to be the basket hilt of the combined sword. It also has a
3mm peg sticking out the side so that it can be attached under the nose of
the jet mode.

Other Notes: Dunno if we'll get a Thundercracker out of this mold, it
seems kinda inevitable. They really needed to ease back on the paint
thickness, it definitely hurt what was otherwise a really good mold.

AUTOBOT: AUTOBOT HOT ROD (just "HOT ROD" online)
Assortment: F3012
Altmode: Racecar
Transformation Difficulty: 8 steps
Previous Name Use: Gen:TR, Gen:K (G1 if you leave off the "Autobot")
Previous Mold Use: Gen:K
Function: Cavalier
Special Unit: None
Origin Universe: G1
Signature Weapon: Energon Sword - Infused with Energon to penetrate any
substance

STR 10 INT 10 SPD 9 FRB 10

Headstrong and impulsive, Hot Rod tends to live life in the fast lanes.

The gave him Rodimus Prime's numbers. Hot Rod pre-Priming should be STR
6, INT 5, SPD 6, FRB 7.

Packaging: Two ties hold the robot to the card, and some twisting and
turning is required to get the backpack out through the hole. The knees are
snapped together. Two more ties hold the sword in the lower right, but the
sword can be worked out without cutting them. The packaging is kinda
reusable if you slide the sword in and out of its ties and take advantage of
the backpack lock effect.
The art on the left side of the box is the art from the Kingdom card
front, but fed through the same filter as other Legacy art. The front of the
tab shows car mode with the combined sword weapon on top of the spoiler,
firing an energy blast from the tip.

Near as I can tell, the toy is identical except for batch stamping. The
Kingdom version has #F5679 on the bottom of the right boot, while the Legacy
version has #F3012 in that location. The new one is also floppy.

DECEPTICON: IGUANUS
Assortment: F3014 (so, we're missing F3013?)
Altmode: Motor Bike
Transformation Difficulty: 15 steps
Previous Name Use: G1, BW
Previous Mold Use: None
Function: Terror Trooper
Special Unit: Pretender
Origin Universe: G1
Signature Weapon: Hurricane Air Blaster - Launches blasts of pressurized
air that cause disorientation

STR 8 INT 6 SPD 4 FRB 7

Iguanus is obsessed with his scaly outer shell and believes he has a
special relationship with Earth reptiles.

Now, see, here's where Geewunning goes a little too far. This toy is
NOT a Pretender, there is no outer shell. The robot mode is modeled heavily
after the G1 toy's Pretender shell, but there isn't a smaller robot inside.
He does have the right numbers for G1, as noted earlier.

Packaging: The tray is a bit more involved, with sturdier fold up blocks
around the back to reduce the chances of damage to the motorcycle wheels.
Two ties on the robot (one of which passes through the fists), and two that
cross over on the weapon in such a way that I doubt it could be stolen
without really obvious package damage. While it takes a bit of wiggling to
get the robot out of the backpack hole, at no point did I feel like I was in
danger of ripping anything off.

Robot Mode: This is closely modeled after the G1 Pretender shell, but
instead of carrying the motorcycle wheels as a sort of shield thing, they're
part of a backpack along with the motorcycle windshield. Of course, this is
neo-G1, so all the rounded and organic elements of the original Pretender
shell are now angular and mechanical. (Not to mention, of course, that he
now lacks the inevitable Pretender Shell Bloat.) Other than the tail being
the wrong color (it was painted gray in G1, it's left unpainted purple here)
they got the colors to match G1 as well. The weapon's totally different, of
course, because it's part of a combining sword and can't really look like a
rifle. The head is reptilian with a sort of shark fin crest and facial
spines (three to a side) that evoke the look of a Predator from the movies.
Mechanical scale patterns are molded multiple places on the body, and the
armored chestplate is faithful to the G1 look. In short, the only thing this
robot mode has in common with the G1 inner robot is that it turns into what
can charitably be called a motorcycle. And that's frankly the best way to
update G1 Pretenders, since all the inner robots were painfully generic until
pretty late in the process, and by that point their altmodes were primarily
made of accessory shell pieces.
3.75" (9cm) tall in a mix of slightly grayish purple, gold, gloss red,
black, and magenta. All the plastic is slightly grayish purple. There's
gold paint on the chest armor, the kneecaps/boot tops, and most of the
weapon. Gloss red paint is used for the banded patterns on the waist and
"cravat" area, and on the energy effects molded into the weapon (which I
guess is supposed to look like a mix of solid pieces and energy fields). The
front of the belt is painted light gray, the eyes are yellow, and the
forearms are painted gloss black. The wheels on the backpack are completely
covered in magenta paint. I'll cover the rest of the backpack paint in
vehicle mode, since it's the windshield.
The neck is a very restricted ball joint, with the face spines limiting
the range of motion quite a bit. The waist is still but turns smoothly
otherwise. Ball joint shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles. The ankle
joints are slotted so that the feet can not only stay flat when the legs are
apart, they can turn 90 degrees inward for transformation. The wheels on the
backpack spin freely.
The fists can hold 3mm pegs, as well as very shallow 5mm pegs on the
bottom. There's also 5mm sockets on the soles of the feet and the backs of
the calves, although those calf sockets aren't really useful in either mode.
There's a 5mm socket in the top of the backpack pointed backwards. There's
smaller sockets in the soles of the feet that initially look like they might
be 3mm, but they're narrower than that and are simply plastic-saving gaps.
The gun is a slightly more convincing weapon than Skywarp's Warp Fork,
because while it becomes a crossguard for the combined sword, it at least
gets to be a fancy crossguard. It looks like a small spaceship trailing red
energy effects, with the wings also being waveguides for the cannon that
takes up the entire fuselage. In fact, down the center is a hole all the way
through, accepting 5mm pegs in front and back or a slightly thinner rod all
the way through as a trident haft or something. It's 29mm wide and 31mm
long, with a 5mm peg on one side at the center and a 3mm peg opposite it,
both unpainted. The 3mm peg is for holding it in robot mode, the 5mm peg for
mounting on the windshield in motorcycle mode, although it can be held okay
by the 5mm socket on the underside of a fist. I suppose it can also be
stored on the back of either leg via the 5mm pegs, but that looks kinda
dumb. If you want to store it, the socket on the top of the backpack is
better.

Transformation: Most of this involves taking the backpack pieces with
wheels on them and swinging them around on their ball joints until they're in
the right positions, then folding the arms and legs so that the 5mm sockets
on the soles of the feet and the bottoms of the fists can grab onto short
pegs on either side of each wheel. This process involves rotating the waist
180 degrees, and some very careful positioning so that the thighs can tab
into the tail (motorcycle seat). The rest is the middle part of the backpack
folding up and over the robot head (the last bit feels like it's being pushed
too far, but it's just a very stiff click-to-get-final-position deal).
The result is VERY stable. Like, shockingly stable for a Hasbro
product. Especially next to its wavemates. Too bad it's also, well...
stupid.

Altmode: It feels like he scanned the fold-up scooter that comes with
Diaclone Skids. Maybe not as dumb-looking as the Deluxe Combiner Wars
Groove, but close. And sure, not as bad as the G1 altmode, but Pretender
altmodes tended to be "If it has four wheels it's a car, two it's a
motorcycle, none and it's a jet." Not a high bar to get over. I mean,
motorcycles are always a higher degree of difficulty, and if the wheels were
twice as big I might be able to overlook the other issues, but it just looks
so silly. Like Swindle sold his real wheels and he had to scavenge some off
a lawnmower.
3.5" (8.5cm) long, with tires 0.75" (2cm) in diameter, in all the same
colors as robot mode other than yellow, since the robot head is covered up.
The magenta wheels are more obvious now. The windshield is very light gray
with a purple Decepticon symbol (almost the same color as the plastic)
printed on it. Some techno-scale details on either side of the windshield
are painted magenta. The headlight is molded but not painted.
The 5mm socket on top of the windshield is meant for the gun, the fist
3mm pegs are accessible on either side of the front wheel but too low for the
gun to usefully attach. The rest of the connectors are hidden or used to
stabilize the vehicle mode.
It can be balanced on a flat enough surface if you're careful and roll
the wheels to a good spot, but there's no kickstand.

Overall: Decent robot mode, interesting transformation, vehicle mode is
stupid but somewhat amusingly so. And, of course, it's the only new mold in
the wave, so worth picking up for novelty's sake.

Combined Weapon: I think they might have lengthened the side peg on the
Warp Fork after finalizing the designs of the other two parts, because it's
too long to let the weapon fit together as seen in the instructions. You'd
need to remove 3mm or so from the side peg to get a proper fit. The Warp
Fork forms a sort of basket hilt, while the Hurricane Air Blaster makes for
an extended crosspiece. The whole thing is 3.5" (9cm) long and mostly meant
to be held by 3mm socket fists, but a bigger fist with a 5mm socket might
manage it if the fist itself is reasonably slim and unblocked by armor bits.
I think removing that much from the Fork's side peg would leave it still able
to securely peg onto the vehicle mode nose, but it might be a near thing.
I carefully used a Dremel to remove just enough of the side peg on the
Warp Fork to let the sword assemble correctly, and there was enough peg left
that the Fork would still stay firmly in place under the nose of Skywarp's
jet mode.

Dave Van Domelen, now to do the Deluxes.