Toy Review: Windcharger

02/10/11

Reveal the Shield Windcharger

Good things come in small packages. The same apparently goes for Transformers toys. I’ve been a fan of the Scout Class since I first picked up Scout Class Elita One (a repaint of Energon Arcee) way back in my first year of toy collecting. The beauty of this size class is that they are just big enough to allow for some design flexibility while remaining small enough to use ball joints, which increases their poseability and play value drastically.

Since that first set of motorcycles , I’ve been eagerly awaiting each Scout Class assortment. During the first movie, most of the Scout Class robots were repainted Energon/Armada figures. When the second movie came out, Hasbro gave us a set of entirely new mini Transformers (and subsequently began re-painting them ad nauseum ). When they started the Hunt for the Decepticons filler line, we got a few new molds, like Breacher and his buddies.

Now we’re coming up on the 3rd installment in the movie franchise and we’ve got the follow up to Hunt for the Decepticons, Reveal the Shield (RtS). The new sub line is basically made up of more re-engineered Generation 1 (G1) Transformers, with a few repaints, and one or two adopted characters from other continuities. So far, it seems to be a continuation of the Classics, Universe, and Generations lines.

The first wave of Scout Class figures from the line has two figures in it; one repaint of Brimstone, a cruiser named Chopsaw (with a rather gay paint job for a robot with such a butch name), and Windcharger.

For awhile, I thought I wasn’t going to get this guy. At the time of his release, Toy Kingdom was marking down the other Scout Class figures that had been clogging the pegs since they stocked Hunt for the Decepticons. Hubcap, Brimstone, Breacher , and all the others were up for only p400.00. For a limited time, Chopsaw and Windcharger were also available at that price and a few lucky guys reported the mark downs. When Toy Kingdom realized its mistake, they immediately pulled all stocks from the shelves. I went in to get one and POOF! All gone.

Thankfully, it was only temporary. Once stocks moved off the shelf, the RtS toys reappeared… but at their normal suggested retail price (SRP); p600.00.

I always found the price point for these figures odd. Current SRP for Deluxe Class figures is p700.00. That’s only a p100.00 difference, only about 15% less. Meanwhile, the figure is only about 4” tall, .about 60% of the size of the Deluxe figures. A more logical progression would be p300 for Legends, p450 for a Scout, and p700 for Deluxe. I’d be interested to know once and for all why the Scouts are consistently the highest priced size in the Transformer lines.

Anyway, back to Windcharger:

 

The G1 Windcharger turned into a Pontiac Firebird Trans-Am, the same type of car that Michael Knight rode in Knightrider. “Keep your scanners peeled, KITT!” “Yes, Michael.” Geektasticly delicious! Windcharger is a little more macho where KITT was sexy though, with boxier lines and those louvered back windows.

This new version turns into something close to the Dodge Charger LX, only meatier. The louvered windows are still there, looking all mean and manly, while the lines are all appropriately boxy. VROOOM!

I honestly tried to do some research on the Dodge Charger LX, so I could include some nice statistics and specifications on acceleration, horsepower and whatnot, but I saw all those numbers on the Wikipedia page and gave up. How many man cards do I need to surrender if I don’t know anything about cars?

His transformation is relatively simple, but Hasbro’s given us a few little things to make it just a bit better. It’s not just the flip his feet down, pull his arms out of the old mini-bot, but it’s close. I love the way his crotch swings down so that you can get him to the correct length, and how his feet push in once he’s in bot mode so that they don’t stick out to the sides too much.

According to some sites, you can leave his hood in the upright position if you’d like a look closer to the G1 animation model, but THIS…

…looks nothing like this…

What it kind of reminds me of is that scene in New Moon where Edward takes off his shirt and reveals his emaciated, pansy-boy frame. Not that I actually watched New Moon. I just heard it from someone. I swear.

Ok, fine. Here’s another man card.

There are some problems with kibble on his arms (his doors) and back (his roof and part of his hood), but that is easily written off as body armor. Besides, it barely restricts his movement.

And as I said, articulation on the Scout Class figures is top notch. Windcharger has ball joints at his neck, shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles. There are Marvel Legends figures that DREAM of having this kind of poseability!

 

One of the few drawbacks of Scout Class figures (aside from the aforementioned price) is the lack of weapons. Most of these toys don’t even have the traditional 5mm holes to mount guns. While Windcharger still doesn’t have any accessories, or the fists that can hold any of the old firearms, he’s got something built-in.

By swinging his hands into his arms, you push out two cannons, one mounted in each arm. According to his bio on the back of the card, these allow him to use the excess electromagnetic energy from his over-charged power plant and channel it into firepower. I guess they though the old version where he was the Master of Magnetism wasn’t going to work as well.

The cannons are also fitted with c-clip bars, so if you have any weapons from say Jazz, or Tracks, or Darkmount, you can use them for Windcharger, too. They really should think about issuing a re-tool of the Classics Cliffjumper so that they can add these c-clips to him and really let him go nuts.

RtS Windcharger really is a treat, and I’m glad I was able to get him, even at full price. Some might have a problem with his being so small and so obviously out of scale with the other Autobots, but I never really paid attention to how big any of the mini-bots were.

They were fun toys, and Windcharger is too.