One of the Blokees kits I was most looking forward to in this series was Death Tracker. Trackers are Sentinel Primes personal guard, with the Death Trackers as the members that work with Airachnid. The Trackers look a lot like the version of Vehicons from Transformers Prime, whom were a very popular bunch of generic soldiers in the Transformers fan community at the time. I honestly thought these generics in Transformers One were Vehicons until learning of their names. Death Trackers, as I said above, are Airachnid's group.
In the movie they're darker colored (to match her, I presume), As a Blokees, they're mostly a dark blue color. It's pretty sharp. Using the new base engineering, the Death Tracker is one solid figure once built. Everything snaps into place and feels pretty solid. The Tracker's wings are included and can be articulated a little for dramatic poses. Death Trackers have some red stripes markings on their shoulder pad... that I now realize was put on the wrong shoulder... whoops. It stands out nicely on the dark blue body and chromed face. The kit comes with the standard set of hand options, forearm guns, and base as well as the laser rifle seen often in the movie. I like these generic guns, it makes sense... you know? Thankfully Death Tracker features plenty of articulation so that the gun can be used in cool poses. I hope the other color variations show up in future series as it's such a cool looking solder.
The Predacon army of scorpion bots in Rise of the Beasts was a lot of fun, so it's a pleasure to get another arachnid soldier in the form of Double Punch. Double Punch is a straight repaint of Scorponok that looks great. Swapping out the purple for a blood red and a different shade of chrome grey. I really like the colors as they give him a viscous look. He could almost be a new version of Gobots Scorp, something I keep in mind while mentally cataloging Double Punch as an honorary Monster Gobot.
Double Punch being a standard retail toy is pretty neat. The original Double Punch was exclusive to the UK, with the following two being BotCon exclusives. I wonder if this ones harder to come by? I don't think I've seen it in too many sightings posts. This one was a gift from the Mrs. in the pile of birthday presents she got me. So it's special for my own reasons. It's funny, I didn't notice the flame like detailing on Scorponok, but see it a mile away on Double Punch. I really like it as I really liked the scorpions from Rise of the Beasts in general. Just a cool group of gnarly bots. This is a good toy of one of them.
When Transformers Animated worked in Waspinator from Beast Wars into a more traditional Transformers setting, I never expected to like it as much as I did. It sounded cool, but was very surprised by how much I enjoyed this version of him. His misadventures as Wasp (prior to beast mode) were fun and made for a great villain in Animated setting. While beast mode Waspinator got a toy, pre-beast Wasp's figure got canceled. Fortunately in Age of the Primes, that's no longer the case. Fugitive Waspinator is a pre-beast mode version of Wasp who is based on the Legacy: United Animated Bumblebee toy.
The originally planned Wasp toy back in Animated was a straight redeco of that lines Bumblebee as they share a body type, however now he's got a show accurate new head that one didn't have. Outside of colors and new head, it's the same toy as the Bumblebee it's based on. A good toy by all means, so that's no problem. The size might sting a little at the Deluxe price point and there's no way to sugar coat that.
I'm accepting it as is, because I wanted the toy and just winced at the $25 that it cost. Especially when thinking how the one that wasn't released in Animated would have been $9 (and bigger). Times have changed, but at least there's finally a figure that fans were denied in it's original time. Overall it's an excellent figure, though I do wish the stinger guns had yellow stripes instead of purple, to match beast mode Waspinator's better. The purple looks great, so I guess it's not a big deal. A headache in your whole body however...
It's Monday, dammit. Thankfully you've found yourself on Zone Base to get you through the week. My weekend was pretty good, even if short lived. Thankfully Memorial Day weekend is approaching for a much needed break. The Mrs and I enjoyed some weekend shopping and good food. I ate plenty of Sushi on Saturday as the Mrs and I watched the newest episode of 1000lbs Sisters and rented The Minecraft Movie on Amazon. I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I did. While I haven't played Minecraft in a while, but I've always enjoyed it. The movie, however, was hilarious and felt more like a Tenacious D episode than a video game adaptation.
I intended to buy the new Doom game this weekend, but decided to hold off for a little while. I'm still playing though the 2016 Doom game I recently bought on sale. I really want the new game, but think I'll get it a little later. I found Turtles of Grayskull Mechaneck and ordered ZombieTrack from Amazon. Surprisingly, ZombieTrack came in within hours. I've been wanting him since announcement, but waiting for 52toys to stock him in the US Amazon shop. I generally get my BeastBox toys there or in person and have had great success. I think there's a fun monster robot week in Zone Base's future. Speaking of fun, Cyberworld toys are starting to materialize and I can't wait to cover them here on the site. They feel like the successor to the Beast Alliance figures that I loved so much and were so fun to blog about. Please look forward to upcoming posts about them as they become available to me. I spent Sunday evening playing Doom and building Blokees. Such a fun way to spend an evening.
Speaking of fun, that's the kind of week I've got coming your way Zone Base readers. Thank you all for coming back for another week of robots, monsters, and misadventure! I hope everyone enjoys the content and hope you all share it with your friends!
Wheeljack may have been one of the background characters in Transformers One, but like several of the greater Transformers cast of characters... he's there. That's a good thing as not only does it give us a large cast of with cool designs, but provides toy companies with all sorts of characters to make toys of! Blokees seem like the perfect choice for TF One characters as both styles meet in fabulous ways. Wheeljack is the first kit I assembled from my case and damn looks great!
I've always been a fan of Wheeljack and have always thought he looked cool, but this is a new level of appreciation. I mentioned in my B-127 post how these kits seem like characters out of Megaman X and Wheeljack has me mentally imagining it. Being the mad scientist of the Autobots, he'd would totally be the character that would tell you about all the great upgrades you've gotten between levels!
Wheeljack features that new sturdier design that's seemingly been introduced in this One series. If he had an 'O' ring, you could easily mistake him for a newer Action Master with improved articulation. He's got the two hands that are standard with most Blokees kits and the same laser B-127 has. It's a solid generic gun, so I don't mind. This version of Wheeljack is a miner and doesn't have a Transformation Cog yet, so he doesn't have the wings you normally associate with him. That's perfectly ok, because we're talking about storytelling and TF One told a great ... one. I really like how this kit came out, he just looks so good! The white and gray colors really pop as well. Dang, Blokees just makes good things.
When Swapticons were first to be shown off, it was today's subject that I was most interested in initially. Being a Beast Wars fan, I'm an easy sell for anything related. This set features Cheetor and Tigatron combining to form one long kitty boo boo.
Originally in Beast Wars, Tigatron was a repaint of Cheetor's toy. That bit of trivia stays on my mind with this set. Even if it's redundant right now, it's funny with the two paired up. They're a pretty neat little bots, and their wacky Swapticon faces make them look more cute than silly. They kind of remind me of Sacred Beast Legend Bioroid figures a little because of their shape. Not a lot, just a little. Obviously these are sillier toys that super serious collectors would scoff at... but there's something about them that's hard to resist. Of the four sets in the first wave, this is my favorite as you probably would guess. Of course I don't have the Walmart exclusive 5 pack yet, so I can't rule those out. It's all beast warriors, so you know I'll love it. Until then, this is the last of the Swapticons posts on the site until more are made available. Hopefully there is more, these little shits are pretty fun.
