Now it's time, after all the lovely fun I had with the Legacy Stunticons, I have finally managed to gather the whole team for the joy that is Menasor! YEAH.
Just for the record, here is the individual dudes:
I was generally impressed with the Stunticons individually, and do somewhat like their vehicle modes, yes, even Breakdown's blatant recolouring.
As a team, they look pretty good. If you just have them standing around, you can easily tell who is the boss and that they are bad guys.
It's nice to see the various sizes they have, and when they are following their master they all seem to match pretty well together.
They stand about the same height as most other deluxes from the Legacy line. Here is Kickback and Shrapnel trying to make a good impression.
Since I had these Autobots out for the Abominus shoot, here they are with them as well.
I do love Motormaster!
Naturally they looks good in vehicle mode as well. Both individually and as a team. It looks like they've driven out of the cartoon! I don't think they are realistically scaled, but they do look very nice.
To my eye, they are scaled enough for me to be a happy camper, plus despite them all looking so nice, I didn't really buy them to keep them in vehicle mode.
So, team wise they are winners, Let's slap them together and for Menasor.
Which involves disassembling the trailer!
This version of Menasor is very stable, because all the Stunticons end up being supplemental parts for him. You can make the main body devoid of car bits, but it doesn't look particularly good.
Each member has a specific spot. Breakdown and Wildrider go on the calves, Dragstrip and Deadend go on the arms and Motormaster goes in the chest. The legs also use a joint very similar to combiner wars/ Unite Warriors, so you can do some swapping if you want.
I was pretty impressed by how compact Motormaster becomes to fit in the chest. He really adds a solid bulk to the toy.
There is a nice bit of auto transformation to him as well. When you attach the arm cars, the trailer has a pin that allows for easy separation at the waist (of Dragstrip and Deadend) which splits them at Menasor's elbows and when you plug the leg cars in, they neatly push in the trailer grey bits that form his shins.
But once he's all together! HOOOOOOOO BABY!
He looks damn amazing. Using the trailer as the base makes the build very solid. He has the normal amount of articulation and ankle rockers.
A bit of new detail is revealed, such as the chest sculpt and the fake under car sculpt on the shins. It's a shame the shins aren't painted, but if you want the G1 cartoon look, I guess his legs were plain grey in the cartoon as well, so there yay go. I actually kinda like the sculpt on the shins, it's a nice addition. However it isn't accurately done, as the sculpt is just replicated for both legs. Theoretically, there should be a slightly different sculpt for each leg. This is because the sculpt is based on the underside of Wildrider and Breakdown.
The head sculpt is really good and very Menasor. And yes, he is very dusty, coz he's been sitting on my desk as I like to have him around.
As I briefly stated before, the articulation on him is pretty damn good and you can get him into some really cool poses. Sadly though, he lacks a neck joint that will allow him to look down. Something I really liked on the UW Menasor.
However, as his joints are so solid you can get him in some really ragey poses!
A really nice inclusion are his ratcheted ankle joints, they are really solid, as are most of his joints and manage to hold his weight rather well. He is also very poseable and can do lotsa stuff.
I do like Menasor a lot, but I do have some very minor niggles. The first is that he can't look down; the toy is very tall and should be able to look down at all the little shmoes he is gonna crush. Just look at him here with Sky Lynx and a few other chums.
The other is that he could have really benefited from articulated fingers.
You can store the little guns on him as well, which I kind of like, but his sword is too small for Menasor. It kinda sucks a bit. The other thing is that a bunch trailer parts are just laid aside. Motormaster has a big cannon/base thing that can be made from the trailer, and when you form Menasor, there is nowhere for the gun to live.
You just end up with the gun chilling out on a small stand. Although you can mess about with how it looks a bit.
And while you can't stash his SWORD on his back, you can stash the stand on his back, for ...er... wings?
You are able to have Menasor arm mount it in a couple of different fashions.
That doesn't look too bad.
That mini sword though...
Finally you can match him up with other combiners, having just finished messing about with POTP/Unite Warriors style Abominus, I have some (one) comparison piccies(pic) to share.
Interesting to see they are both about the same height, but Menasor is much more solid and chunkier than Abominus, of course, the centre of Menasor is a commander class figure rather than a voyager, so that makes a difference.
Finishing up, I really like this Menasor. Even though he can't do the old Scramble city gimmick of shifting guys around anywhere, and the deluxe characters are pretty much accessories to Motormaster adding some colour or hiding, these sacrifices have added to his solidness in a very positive manner.
He is way more stable and looks a lot better than the UW Menasor (assuming you like the cartoon look), but I still believe that UW Menasor and Legacy Menasor have enough charm to keep both. UW is like a modern take on the toys, whereas Legacy is slavishly G1 cartoon.
Many people object to this guy's way of doing things, but I feel that the trailer as the base for Menasor is a good idea as it makes a deliciously solid gestalt robot.
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