Moving on to the meat of the three-pack, Thundertron. He’s a well-articulated robot with a lot of style. Aside from the regal stylings expected of a pirate captain, he’s covered in sculpted battle damage. In peg-leg mode though, his balance isn’t the best but that’s real world accuracy I guess. Paint scheme is the same as the retail release but the navy blue is changed to a lighter blue that google tells me is either Egyptian blue or cobalt blue. The gold is less coppery in tone than the shade of the retail release. The two different shades of electric blue are pure eye candy and I wish they’d done more of them. The new head resembles Prime’s more but with the customary nose and an eyepatch. Unfortunately, it is unpainted, as are all the battle damage. The other new point of interest is the hook hand. It’s pretty bad. Looks like one of the rubber coated hooks you’d find at a hardware store and has a growth underneath to accommodate the transformation. It’s also 5mm compatible but understandably loose. The sword is well detailed but is begging for some painted detail. It gets the job done I suppose. It’s a soft plastic but not rubbery so I’m not sure how it’ll take the paint. Also gave him a pistol from a knockoff construction robot until I can make a Soul Calibur Cervantes-style swordgun.
nightshriek can perch on his shoulder via dedicated ports but it’s not so great since the bat mold can’t fold its wings in a way that doesn’t look awkward and looks kind weird sitting there with wings fully spread.
Lion mold is a brick. You can unlock the front legs for a little more movement but it exposes robot arms. The static pose it’s designed in is also a bit awkward, supposed to be a pre-pounce pose I guess but it tends to look downwards due to the front legs being shorter and lacking the joints to raise them higher. Also, I call bull on the designers claiming this is Zoids-inspired. Zoids aren’t Zoids without obnoxiously visible rubber plugs and bigass asymmetric guns strapped on their backs. It also lacks the meaty mitts of the Ligers but it’s a decent enough space lion as it is, they did a poor job at homaging them. Also the things on the sides of the lion head remind me of the cone of shame.
Overall, not a bad toy at all but a bit disappointing in its limitations. It does bring a lot of visual flair to the table but mechanically it’s left wanting.
i feel like adding some more white and some gunmetal and gold details. Definitely hitting the eyepatch with some color.
