Dave's Transformers EarthSpark Deluxe Wave 3

Grimlock (robot T.rex)
Terran Nightshade (robot owl)
Dr. Meridian/Mandroid (Build-a-Figure)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/ES/Deluxe3

Fortunately Hasbro Pulse carries the Deluxes, even if most of the
EarthSpark toys don't show up there, since these are tail end figures and
might not show up in many stores (plus I've had it up to here with Walmart's
"treat all customers as shoplifters" policies and am avoiding going in the
store as much as possible now, so I only really have a single Target for new
TFs in person). Anyway, now I have the rest of the year one Deluxes and can
assemble Mandroid, so he's in the review too.

CAPSULES

$20 price point.

Grimlock: Looks pretty good in both modes, but robot mode is a bit
floppy and dino mode a bit brickish. Still, while cartoon-line Deluxes have
never been that great compared to Generations (the extra five bucks of retail
price apparently makes a huge difference), this is a decent design by those
standards. Recommended.

Terran Nightshade: Okay, this does show the budget issues a little more
starkly, but they managed to get a decent robot mode and a not-horrible beast
mode out of it anyway. The main thing recommending this is the lore (only
toy of this new character, first canonically "I know gender exists but choose
neither" character). Mildly recommended purely on mechanical criteria,
though.

Mandroid: Is this worth getting all seven just to assemble? Of course
not. Does it make it worth your while to pick up some of the weaker members
of the 2023 Deluxes? Well, technically you can pick between Megatron
(absolute weakest) and Shockwave (decent mold, but reused from Cyberverse)
because both come with left arms (human and robot respectively). With that
relatively low bar to clear, is this enough to get at least six of the seven?
Um, not really. It's a super cheap figure as BAFs go, fiddly to assemble, a
bit weirdly proportioned, and under-articulated.

RANTS

Packaging: Same as previous Deluxe waves.

AUTOBOT: GRIMLOCK
Assortment: F6737
Altmode: Robot T.rex
Transformation Difficulty: 21 steps
Previous Name Use: Yes
Previous Mold Use: None
GHOST Affiliated: No

Packaging: Six plastic ties hold the robot to the inner tray, two hold
the rifle in the lower left, and two hold Mandroid's right leg to the upper
left of the tray. Nothing is in tissue paper.

Robot Mode: The EarthSpark design is fairly close in generalities to the
G1 design, if with really skinny thighs and differences in most of the
smaller scale details. As with most modern updates of chromed G1 toys, they
went for colors that sort of evoke metallics without being metallic.
5" (12.5cm) tall in mostly light gray, dull gold, black and red. A sort
of "pretend this is gold" glossy desaturated yellow plastic is used for the
torso front, foot claws on the wrists, rifle, and the tail bits on the backs
of the boots. The fists, thighs, knees, shoulder joint sockets, and joints
inside the ankles are black plastic. Everything else is a light slightly
silvery gray.
The head is mostly painted (gloss? maybe just some mold release oil on
it) black with a blue visor, leaving the ear/horn bits on the sides
unpainted. There's red on the sternum, the pelvis front, spine details on
the kneecaps and shins, as well as on the left foot (the only major asymmetry
here) and the top of the rifle. There's matte black the outer faces of the
shoulders, as well as on the lower abdomen. A red Autobot symbol is printed
lower on the sternum.
The neck is a ball joint at the top of the neck, the waist is a swivel.
The shoulders are ball joints with separate slightly less brittle black
plastic for the sockets, while the elbows are just gray on gray plastic ball
joints with a decent range of motion. The wrists bend inwards for
transformation. Somewhat loose ball joint hips with upper thigh swivels.
The knees are hinges that bend about 70 degrees. The ankles have the full
range of hinged motion and then some, being a bit overjointed for
transformation reasons.
The fists can hold 5mm pegs, and there's a 5mm socket on top of the left
toe (but it's mostly useful for dino mode). There's the usual 3mm socket in
the back of the pelvis, and for some reason 3mm studs on top of the forearms
by the wrist joints.
The rifle is pretty close to the shape of the G1 rifle, but cast in that
not-gold plastic. Both barrels end in 3mm studs, and it has a 5mm peg grip.
There's some hollows on the underside intended to fit around the spikes on
the left foot. It's 2" (5cm) long.

Transformation: Whew. The upper half is pretty classic Grimlock, but
the way the legs become the tail (and belly, and part of the spine) is rather
tricky. Similar transformations have been used for Grimlocks before, but
this one upped the fiddly-bit game noticeably. I had particular trouble with
the dino chest area, which needed to go around one of the robot feet but the
robot shoulders got in the way of doing it cleanly. Checking the
instructions, they just sort of assume jamming the foot in there will work
(spoiler: it does not). At least, when it is done the result is stable and
there's no giant gaps or hollows. It does seem to help if you transform the
dino upper body and right leg (underside) first, then worry about the left
leg.
Going back to robot mode, the legs are also a hassle, in part because
the hip sockets are weak enough that when turning or folding parts elsewhere
in the leg the entire leg tends to pop off. There's also a lot of folding
needed to get the feet back into position.

Beast Mode: This follows the more modern interpretation of T.rex having
a horizontal spine while walking, the head can't even look down enough to
allow for a G1-style tail-dragger stance. (If you try, he develops a severe
underbite.) The tail is on the thick side, but I've seen worse from
Grimlocks in recent years. There's spines along the back and top of the
tail, and a hump on top of the back with a pair of gun barrels poking out.
6.5" (16.5cm) long from snout to tail tip and a little under 4" (9.5cm)
tall with the gun on the back. The colors are about the same, just shuffled
around. The head and the neck tendons are gray plastic, the neck itself is
not-gold plastic, as is the tip of the tail. Part of the black knee joint is
visible mid-tail.
The forearms are painted mostly black, and there's matte black patches
on the sides of the head. The top of the head is painted red, the eyes are
bright blue, and for some reason the lower jaw is dipped in silver paint
despite already being gray plastic.
The jaw can open on a hinge and the head tilts up and down a little.
The forelimbs do not move at all, and do feel like a possible breakage
point. The robot shoulders are the rear hips, the robot elbows are arranged
to not be useful in this mode. There's a 5mm socket on the hump of the back,
and a 3mm stud inside the mouth. Interestingly, those cannon barrel details
poking out the front of the hump are 3mm sockets and the 3mm peg Fire Blasts
I commissioned from Trent Troop fit perfectly.

Overall: Some floppiness issues in robot mode, which can probably be
reduced a bit through washing off the mold release oil, but the hips'
tendency to pop off is unlikely to be fixable. Not too bad given the gradual
cheesification the Deluxe class has experienced in cartoon lines, though.

TERRAN: TERRAN NIGHTSHADE
Assortment: F6738
Altmode: Robot Owl
Transformation Difficulty: 13 steps
Previous Name Use: None
Previous Mold Use: None
GHOST Affiliated: None

Packaging: Three plastic ties hold the robot to the tray. The wings are
packaged separately, held in the lower left by two ties, while the two
daggers are bound together in the lower right by two ties. This comes with
Mandroid's torso held in the upper left by two ties, but since it's also the
only toy the character's getting in the first year, it's kind of a must buy
even if you're not doing the BAF.
Interestingly, thanks to the stretchy nature of the plastic ties, you
only have to cut one tie (the one that goes through the fists) to get
everything out of the package.
The instructions include an "assemble the robot" section, since the
wings aren't really meant to come off during play, they're just separate to
fit better in the box (and for increased breakage-safety).

Robot Mode: A skinny pine green and slightly silvery light gray bot with
big ears, wings, owl legs hanging off the forearms, and a couple of knives
with which he will cut you. While you can remove the wings by reversing the
assembly instructions, they can't really fold down, just back. Folding up
might have let them cover up the owl face on the back, ah well. You can't
really hide the owl face, it's just sort of there on the back. I mean, you
can turn it around before transforming, but then it's looking out of the
stomach upside-down.
5.25" (13cm) tall with a wingspan of 6.5" (16.5cm). A metalflake pine
green plastic is used for the head, torso, boots, and part of the wing roots.
The wings themselves and the ears are a slightly rubbery pine green plastic
that also appears to have a bit of metalflake effect in it. Terrans are
shiny. The upper back, wing hinges, knives, shoulder roots, arms, pelvis,
thighs, ankles, and feet are slightly silverly light gray plastic. There's
also a bit of gray plastic inside the head for the ball part of the neck.
A metallic light green paint is used for the feathers, the shoulderpads,
the tops of the forearms, and the outer faces of the thighs. The face is
silver, with black rings around the eyes, and lime green eyes. Actually, I
think they painted the entire face black first, because some of the silver
paint doesn't cover well and black shows through rather than green. The
cross-like shape on the chest is painted black as are details on the tops of
the forearms and bottom edges of the boots. There's lime green strips along
the outer edges of the forearms.
The neck is a ball joint, but due to the transformation the waist can
only lean back. Ball joint shoulders, upper arm swivels, hinge elbows, no
wrist articulation. Ball joint hips, swivels just above the hinge knees, and
the ankles can wiggle front-back a bit and bend sideways to keep the feet
flat in wide stances. The wings are hinged to fold back about 45 degrees,
and the roots are connected on ball joints that are mostly useful in beast
mode. You can sort of put the wings in a Silverbolt sort of position.
The hands can hold 5mm pegs, and there's a 3mm socket in the back of the
pelvis. The daggers have their non-standard wing storage locations.
His weapons are twin combat knives, these are practically Warhammer 40K
weapons here, all jagged and with trapezoidal teeth on back that probably
vibrate chainsaw-like. A lot of wickedness packed into a 1.5" (4cm) length
with short 5mm peg grips. They store on the leading edge of the wings, you
do really need to cram them in or they tend to fall out of the rubbery
plastic. (The Terran toys are more heavily armed than we've seen on the
cartoon so far.)