Sunday 10 April 2011

Zoweee! It’s Generations Warpath!!!!

WPhead
OK, I managed to get some shots of this guy and I have to say, I like it!  He is chunky and is a great homage to The original Warpath.  I tells ya, this is what the Generations/Henkei/Classics Universe should be about baby!!

I have been a fan of Warpath for a couple of reasons, I believe his G1 mode is based on a spiffing tank(according to the TF Wiki, he is a Sheridan tank in G1) and for his awesome voice in the cartoon, filled with a minor tourettes syndrome, showing itself in random callouts of “Kablam,” “Zoweee” and “kapow” as just a small example.  This was also carried off nicely in his part in the War For Cybertron game.

He has had an increase in toy size since his G1 Minibot days, as well as articulation and general coolness and manages to keep the important parts of Warpath.  His distinctive face and chest cannon, being the main two.
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Warpath is now an H-Tank.  I dunno if these are real or not, but there have been a few H tanks for Transformers recently.  Warpath here is one of the better looking ones with some cool design, much better than the likes of Armada Megatron, who was a much larger figure.

Some general thoughts on the figure.  As a tank, it has a lot of play value as the main turret can be rotated on the base and the barrel of the cannon can be raised and lowered.
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He has a missile pod thing and a spring loaded missile launcher on the back, which end up being kind of shoulder mounted in robot mode, but they are stuck on and can’t be moved separately from the turret.
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By far the biggest issue here is the ridiculous length of the missile.  It’s far too long for the launcher.  From the front it looks ok, but the sides…  Yeesh!
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I think it looks just as good without the missile in it to be honest.

He has some clip spots on the top of each caterpillar tread, which will hold like minded weapons, Darkmount’s clip weapons for example.  The ones on the rear treads hamper the rotation of the turret but the front ones are fine.The front ones actually look pretty good with Breacher’s double barrelled blaster mounted on it.

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There are some nice sculpting details on his body which add some realistic texture to his look.  I think they are needed as paint applications are pretty sparse, but considering how he doesn’t really need much paint, that seems ok.

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As you can see from the pictures, most of the paint has been used to write the old kapow and zowee on him, as well as an Autobot insignia on either side of him.
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They are applied clear enough, and are very simple and effective.

I was impressed with the silver paint application, which I only just remembered, so really he has a fair whack of paint on him I guess.  The silver is around the clip parts and on his tracks.
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The silver works well, as it actually looks metallic and not grey, like a lot of Hasbro’s ‘metallic’ colours turn out.  The robot parts are hidden extremely well.

The Tank is a nice enough look.  From the front, it looks pretty menacing, but from behind, well, that’s another kettle of fish altogether.  He appears to have a large gap, not as big as say Animated Rodimus or Blurr, but still fairly large.
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The tanks mode is a reasonable size for a deluxe figure.  He ends up looking larger than a car, but small for a tank I guess.  He spreads out as he transforms, which adds to the impression of mass.

The plastic colour is pretty damn close to the original, just a couple of shades off.  I think unless they are next to each other, you wouldn’t even notice. I didn’t.

So here they are next to each other.

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G1, then Universe legends size, the darker legend is TT’s Henkei version and a group shot of the lot!

TRANSFORMMMMMM!

WPTFgood

The robot mode is indeed a thing of beauty!  It manages to capture the essence of Warpath very well, including the barrel of the tank from his chest, and the way it works, the barrel doesn’t get in the way in the slightest.

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His sculpting lends itself to seeming to look well armoured and he certainly looks like a tough as nails character that is just happy to plough into the middle of battle wailing on anything that gets within reach.
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One of the things I love the most is they have gotten the head sculpt spot on!  It’s marvellous!  Add to that the fact that they have it covered by the man hole for the diver, makes it very G1!  On the original, the man hole was the back of his head.  I heard that some TF fans didn’t like that the actual door ( as I will call it) wasn’t attached to his head.  It is now a separate piece, but to be honest, I prefer it separate.  The instructions tell you to lean the door against the back of his head (and it has a little indent that fits the back for a clean fit), but this stops him from turning his head.  Once you do, the connection is lost.  As a result, I have the door just standing straight up, away form his head.  It still offers protection to the back of his head, but doesn’t hinder movement now.
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My preferred mode.IMG_5057

From the back you can’t really see anything bad about having his head free!
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I like the sculpting for robot mode as well.  Extra details that are hidden have been added, like on the small of his back in the picture above.  Check the detail on the back of his fore-arms as well.

The front isn’t too shabby either.  The details from the tank work nicely for the robot!
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If you look at the back of his head, you can see a black piece.  This looks like it may have been meant for the eyes light piping gimmick, but was filled in with black plastic instead.  I wonder why.  Could have been cool.  If they had used an opaque dark plastic, it could have still let a little bit of light through.  I like the shoulder sculpt as well, looks like some small mounted weapons.  Even the waist and back have extra bits to look at.

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Breacher’s gun mounted onto his fore-arm.
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And that picture opens up for a small complaint.  His hand folds into his forearm for transformation, unfortunately, this leaves a big gap above his fist.
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Even the legs have a lot of sculpting detail on them.  I like that they kept the treads as his feet too.  Lots of good joints in his legs and arms manage to cover the fact that he doesn’t have a waist joint.

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I am impressed by the sculpting on his calves.  Lots of little surprises on this guy.

He is still pretty pose-able, even without his waist joint.
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I would have liked to have seen a pistol or gun for him to have, preferably one of the shoulder mounted weapons.  But, considering how he has a bloody great big cannon in his chest, maybe he doesn’t need one…

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Wooooooooooorrrrr!






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OH YEH! COME GET SOOOOOMMMMMME! 

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Comparing with other, admittedly taller deluxe/voyager.  Despite initially looking a little small for a deluxe, he is the same height as Reveal The Shield Perceptor and when standing next to other Autobots, coming from his Minibot G1 status, a slightly smaller robot is fine I think.  The whole effect for this figure is fantastic.  The look of both robot mode and vehicle mode are great, it is a perfect upgrade/update of Warpath and hopefully we will see more of him.  I personally would like to see a toy of his War For Cybertron mode. That was pretty cool.  Preferably voyager sized, as he was a bit larger than your average Autobot in that game.


Whoops forgot someone!
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POP!
That’s better!

1 comment:

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