So working on the theme of the Beast Wars Megatron and dragons, I present the final evolutionary dragon of him. From the series that ended up having some of the same writers as the Animated show, but not quite up to that quality, it’s Savage/Noble from Beast Machines. Or as the package calls him due to naming issues, Beast Changer.
Beast Changer here is somewhat similar to the Beast Wars Mutants in that they lack a ‘robot’ mode and change between two beast modes. Personally, I think they are a bit ugly, but hey some people actually like them.
Savage/Noble here became the most popular due to his place in the story of Beast Machines. He is the result of Megatron shedding himself of his weak organic part. Unfortunately, Megatron has gotten trapped within the fleshy confines of this body for a bit. The story gets quite interesting as Megatron interacts with the Maximals to find a way back to his now mechanical body.
Ok, enough of the blab, Let’s have a look at the toy! Starting with, robot mode. oh, Beast Mode I guess… Hmm, tricky these Mutant fellows..
Ok, we’ll start with the character known as Noble. He is the most intelligent of the two and the one that does all the talking.
Yep, he is a werewolf. Kind of nice. In the show the colours are a lot more purple on him, and his wings in the first picture are never seen. I quite like him with the wings left on though as the colour adds the more purple that he requires to help hide the Savage part of him.
Yes, despite his legs being the funky insectoid style, which appears to be very popular with the Movie series of Transformers, they actually hold him up quite well. I hate these types of legs, due to them having to be perfectly placed to get a figure to stand straight. Assuming they can stand at all. His small toes are well countered by the heel spurs. I tried a running on all fours pose, but either just didn’t have the patience for it today, or the knack. either way. It Sucked. Hard.
What I do like about this toy, is the paint work. Man it is nice. The face in particular is really good. The sculpting is good as well. Hey, let’s face it, this is a pretty good toy!
The Purple and blue colours on the face work well. They have a metallic sheen hinting at his origins. I am very impressed with the little purple beard, painted over the chin. Even his level of eye liner is impressive. Very crisply applied paints here as well, non of them seem to go over into places where they shouldn't be.
One thing I find quite interesting is his eyes. They are empty. In the show, Noble ends up losing his spark (because he is Megatron) when Megs returns to a robot body. Now here we can see that Noble has nothing where his eyes are. They say the eyes are the window to the Spark and now it is empty. Woooo, Spiritual. Much like the show.
AS I said before, lots of nice paintwork on this guy. Check out the gradient shading there on his fur underneath his ears. Veeeeery nice. He seems to have opaque chest sections as well where you can see some slightly mechanical bits as well. Quite interesting.
It alsso looks like his muscle is exposed on the upper arms there. Hmmm, I might have to re-watch some episodes where he shows p and see if I can spot anything now.
On his right arm is his spark crystal, Interstingly enough, it is a combination of the Beast Machines Maximal symbol and the Vehicon symbol. See if you can pick the two halves.
Noble has a funky ‘Attack mode,’ where you extend his arm and wind the fore-arm up with a little lever on his back, which in concept seems clever, but doesn’t seem to work very well. I bought mine second hand, but it was MISB and I haven’t played with it that much, yet it doesn’t work any more. Sad Face. The spark crystal is a lock, so when it’s up, then you can wind up some power, and when you push the crystal down, it should release the arm for a devastating spinning claw attack!!!
Buut mine doesn’t anymore.
Moving on.
To the other beast mode. That is DRAGON MODE!
Not your standard looking dragon here. In the cartoon it is a mindless, incredibly powerful nigh indestructible lumbering creature. It has big feet and the balance of the body actually works quite well.
Starting from the top we shall have a look at his noggin’. Savage here doesn’t appear to have any eyes. Interesting…
Nicely detailed scale sculpting throughout the body.
The gold paint works really well. The wings are painted red on the back, they are an opaque blue colour for when he is in Noble mode. The veins are a nice touch and the claws on the wings are reminiscent of the dragon mode from Beast Machines. The holes in the wings add a lot. It’s kind of like the guy has either been through a lot, or is unfinished in his creation. Either way, it’s a relatively consistent theme throughout the toy.
Beast Machines figures have a love for geared/spring loaded gimmicks. Noble has a spinning claw attack, while Savage has a chomping/opening mouth thing going on. there is a little switch on the side of his neck that when pressed opens his mouth.
He even has a tongue sculpted into the inside of his mouth. Since I am looking at his mouth, have a squizz at the underside. It appears to have the same ‘battle damage’ as Noble.
Looking at the rest of the body, we can see it’s unique in it’s design. Savage has two tails and balances on the arms of the Noble mode. The feet are big and so hold him up pretty well. It makes me wonder how this would move in real life, as the body is quite thick. The centre of balance would be all over the place during locomotion.
The tails are formed from the legs of Noble, so the fur sculpting is on the back. But I think they do a good enough job of not looking like were-wolf legs. The wolf feet fold up into the wolf thighs quit nicely and the end result is well done.
Like I said earlier, the balance of the legs is pretty good, you can actually jack him up pretty high and he will stand fine like this. On two legs anyway…
The underside is remarkably dragony looking too. The lever that is supposed to wind up the claw for its attack forms the chest of the dragon. It is scaled and pointy. Just like his forearms as well. As you can see, there are quite a few screws too.
The coloured groin does stand out, but only if you flip him over. And believe me, this guy is tough enough NOT to be flipped over.
So we end up with an interesting figure here. I would be interested to see how this guy’s concept was developed. It’s not like they thought that he could be a car and have to make a robot out of him. We have ended up with a figure that has two beast modes. One of which is a type that hasn’t been in Transformers to my knowledge, (Unless you count the Headmaster Fangry) and a dragon mode that doesn’t really resemble any dragon I have seen before.
The good news is though, it’s a well thought out figure and manages to work rather well in both modes, with enough of the other being hidden to keep the aesthetic look together. I find myself messing about with this guy quite a bit now that I have dragged him out. Both modes are quite fun, the colours looks nice, although not as blingy as TM2 Megs, but the paint work is good and the levels of shading and quality of application, as well as the slightly metallic look to some of it make him quite an interesting character. Just a shame that the wind up claw feature seems to have broken so easily.
Play time.
Oh dear, BRS didn’t do so well in that fight…
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