Canadian Transformers News and Discussion Forum

[imfallenangel]

Got the two a few days ago, and for the first SS86 figures I get, they might be the last ones as none of the others announced so far interest me.

But the ugly first: I'm just not super impressed in hand... I am disappointed that they aren't living up to the impression I had of them.

They are a tad cheaper plastic that we've seen with WFC Siege.

Hot Rod:

I'm scare that Hot Rod could break at any time as the lesser plastic and the very small parts and the very stiff ratchets articulation aren't a good match.

The worst is that Hod Rod's engineering for the arms articulation is a pretty big let down as it's done in such a way that it limits it's range a LOT.

You can compensate with weird angles and having the arms going up to his head, but just a different approach would have done a much better job.

I repeat, the way the arms/shoulders are done, may frustrated some of you as posing him is a challenge.

His transformation to car mode is a bit extensive and a pain... he reminds me of Apeface a bit as you need to get things just right and snapped in. Once done, it is quite solid.

Going back to robot is still challenging but not as much and aside the legs and the front of the car that you need to flip and snap in, it's not too bad.

He does look great but the arms being too close to the body and the hardship to move them easily does make him lose so many points. As a voyager, even with the extra accessories and fancy engineering, the truth is that he's really small and shouldn't be a voyager.

Annoyance for the accessories is the storage that's not the greatest... pinning the guns on top of the car feels like they'll scratch the paint or break.

Scourge:

Much more massive as being also a Voyager. At least that's nice, but he's still quite smaller than Kingdom Cyclonus (which ends up being the comparison figure).

The plastic is ok-ish but you can feel in hand that
it's reminiscent of the Combiner wars as it's the hard and no very flexible type.

The transformation is both single and hard as some parts are simply a pain to align easily (mostly the parts that end up covering the hands).

He does look good in spaceship mode except for the weird approach they did with the underbelly that doesn't close up the figure at all. It's very similar to the Titans Return version for that.

The robot is pretty decent, moves well, articulation is good except for the feet that are a bit limited, and he is backpack heavy.

The feet only tilt when they should be able to bend forward/backwards too, the legs don't transform at all so there's not reason that they couldn't have added that articulation. And because of that, he does suffer from a lot of tipping over due to being very back heavy. Some can argue that he has toes and hell that do bend, and those do help, but it's not all that great.

I will repeat a warning about the hands that I had thankfully read forehand: they do swivel but are very stiff... you need to grab them in a way that will not break them, especially the open hand on, that some people have reported breaking the thumb by trying to force it in a bad way (and some using a weapon in hand as a lever).

Annoyance: there's no storage for the weapon in alt mode aside pinning it to the side (which looks bad).

Final words:

I'm stuck between liking them quite a bit for what they are, and hating that these are overpriced for what they are, especially with the faults and limitations. With Cyclonus as a reference (as his biggest negative is that he should have come with two guns to balance them on the wings in spacejet mode), they do come up very short.

Do I regret getting them? Not really as I do like them in general, but I really wish that they would be better. I would almost say that Scourge ends up being the better of the two but Hot Rod has some things that makes him stand out too.

If you get them, I hope that you'll enjoy them, and if you don't, I don't really see these as a "must-have" unless you really want them.