Another one of my sheer boredom purchases. I'd heard rumblings about this War Dawn 2 Pack a few weeks ago, but as things go my interest wasn't really there. Being a Gamestop exclusive, and there no lack of resellers meant in general this would be hard for me to get, cumulating in a Herculean effort that really shouldn't be applied to something of this caliber.
Of course, that all gets tossed out the window when someone just DMs you and says they're available and your membership discount further drives the price down to something that is quite reasonable (given the current pricing scheme and all).
So here it is, in all its "Plastic Free" glory. I know that the figure collecting fans all kind of freaked out when their figures started coming in effectively blind boxes, and apparently this caused sales to lower to a point where Hasbro felt pressured to reintroduce plastic windows into packaging. Transformers side of things had window cut outs for Deluxe and smaller sizes, whereas Leader and up were all solid boxes. With this set, I don't know if this is because of a new initiative or because of the size of the box. What I do know is that word on the street states that plastic windows were being removed for cost cutting purposes.
Like always, Hasbro seems to only squeeze larger figures into boxes that are just the right size. Anything lower always has significant amounts of unused space, and I think it has to do with reuse of existing box sizes, as well as Loss Prevention. The only thing I'm not showing in this picture are the instructions, which ironically are larger and easier to see than on a Masterpiece figure.
Erial (left) is a recolour/retool of the Legacy Arcee deluxe figure, whereas Dion (right) is a recolour/retool of the Studio Series Kup deluxe figure.
Of the two figures, technically Dion has more accessories, which include a gun, a handheld detector of some sorts, and two backpack addons that can be used as guns. Erial on the other hand has her gun, as well as the weird thing that the front wheel turns into, a feature that is strangely not advertised in any of the paper work.. almost like Hasbro/Takara Tomy realized it was a stupid, stupid feature.
Of the two figures, Dion is one I don't have any experience with. As far as a deluxe sized figure goes, it seems this mould has everything that you'd expect in terms of articulation and general range of motion. So nothing mind blowing, but it's functional and will do the job. There's no full ankle support, but it does have partial side tilts. Paint Application is pretty good - again, it's not exactly a lot of paint, but at least the applications themselves are solid, which is nice, considering there's large areas of white.
Perhaps the most annoying thing about this figure, or at least my copy of it, is that the backpack refuses to stay upright and attached to the body. Also, my figure also seems to like to detach itself at the thigh swivel, which is both amusing and irritating at the same time.
Transformation into what is apparently the only Cybertronian vehicle mode for male characters is pretty straight forward, with the only trick being the secondary joints on the shoulder. I guess my only criticism is that it's too bad this was a deluxe, because that tail end really should be longer. The colour scheme, surprisingly, actually seems to work and is nowhere as hideous as I feared it to be.
Erial is funny to me. First off, there's the obvious effort put into that name. Then, Hasbro make is apparently obvious that this a Cybertronian made Female by applying a predominately Pink and White colour scheme... which I swear was already used by Elita-1, but they can't confuse people by having two of the same character simultaneously.
Then there's that new head sculpt which really doesn't scream Female to me, but when you factor in that weirdly shaped head crest and the ponytail, you get a missing character from the It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia episode about the history of Paddy's Pub.
Otherwise, pretty straightforward. The figure itself has again pretty standard deluxe level articulation, and the Paint/Build are as expected. The good news is that at least Erial holds together much better than Dion does.
Transformation into motorcycle mode is again pretty straight forward, as one expects with a deluxe class figure. If you haven't seen this in person before, I'd describe it as a pretty competent alt mode, with the only real weakness being the obvious robot hands from behind, and the really short kick stand.
There was no way this set was going to blow my mind - I'm far too jaded and been at this too long to be super impressed by anything off a local shelf. But, barring the backpack issue on Dion, the pack does generally deliver on providing competent transforming toys, and is technically a great deal if you were able to get it from GameStop Canada, especially if you're a member that gets a further 10% off.
Overall, a nice, economical way to gain access to both of these moulds if you don't own any of them.
For Full Gallery, please visit:
Comments