Combiner Wars Scattershot



In a wave introducing the Big Bad Battlin' gestalt, its easy to forget the other addition to the Combiner Wars line in the first wave of 2016; the leader of the Technobots: Scattershot. Perhaps the most "controversial" and possibly disappointing addition to Combiner Wars this side of Battle Core Optimus, Scattershot is a bit of a mixed bag, with some greatness mixed in with some massive undeniable flaws.



Scattershot is a heavy retool of Combiner Wars Silverbolt, although in robot mode a lot of the new parts are hidden away. Most notably Scattershot is given a new head to seperate himself from his Aerialbot counterpart along with his new deco. The new head looks decent as a mold, but the paint apps are absolutely disappointing. The entire face is the same light blue with zero variance between the face and the visor. He gets away with it partially because that's how the original G1 toy looked, but really I'd prefer him to have a blue visor and white face like in the cartoon and nearly all the artwork of the character.



Scattershot manages to be distinguishable as a new character in robot mode, but he is far less different in the mode when you compare Silverbolt to Cyclonus. The effort in this figure shows up when you transform him...



Scattershot's space cruiser mode is where all the changes have been made. It's easier to write what hasn't been changed in comparison to Silverbolt then what has; the back portion of his wings with the vents and back half of the cylinder running down the jet's back with the two bottom fins. Nearly everything else is entirely new in order to really separate the character from the other versions of this mold. He even is given a new "futuristic" landing gear on the front of the space ship.



While there are some definite call backs to the original Scattershot, such as the cannons on the wing tips, cannon on the tail fin and the presence of a cannon on his cockpit (albeit no particularly resembling the G1 cannon), Scattershot is mostly a whole new design, which is what I like in my Generations figures. Ultimately the vehicle mode is where Scattershot shines; this is clearly where all the effort was put in. It works well enough, he definitely looks like an updated version of his G1 spaceship and I love the design of the cockpit-cannon, but the usual Silverbolt flaws are still present. Scattershot carries the entirety of his robot mode underneath him and it doesn't hide away very well. He doesn't look particularly aerodynamic, but I guess a super-powerful space ship from the future doesn't necessarily have to be.



I really appreciate the new molding on the spaceship and trio of Combiner Jet Torsos are really distinguished from another so at least in this mode you don't feel like you have the exact same thing three times over. I still think Cyclonus is the best looking of the three jets, but Scattershot is pretty impressive for a retool. I look forward to owning it again as Sea Clamp. The effort on the spaceship mode is great, but the true purpose of the line is the Combiners and Scattershot is able to combine with other limbs to form...



... Red Superion! Well actually this is the new Combiner Betatron, an obvious precursor to a full-fledged Computron. The "beta" version of Computron, get it? I think this is where the figure disappoints everyone the most. Yes, Computron's original toy head did resemble Superion's in a lot of ways, but Betatron has the honor of being the only Combiner Wars torso not including the forgettable Battle Core Prime to not have a new head and that's really disappointing. The deco for the old head is also bizarre, Computron memorable orange face is completely absent and he's been given red eyes over orange or blue like his previous versions. The lack of brown is also confusing! The fact that they've taken Superion's head, left it the same and then even gave Betatron Superion-esque colors on his head over Computron's kind of baffles me.



The box of Scattershot tells you to use Optimus Maximus' limbs to form Betatron. I don't think we really need to take that into account much however, official artwork shows him using Sky-Reign's limbs and Scattershot's bio makes note of the fact that he combines with any Autobots to become Betatron (and that Scattershot is completely in control of Betatron's mind rather then sharing with his limbs). Its fairly obvious these guys were just chosen on the box because they're the Autobots most likely to be on the shelf next to Scattershot.



I think a funner way to play with this figure is to take all your red limbs and make your own Hate Plague infected Superion! Wandering Roller will work well here eventually. For the disappointment that is the head, the different shades of red on Betatron are quite fetching. I don't fault the figures deco outside of the bizarre choices on his head.



Ultimately, Betatron is just far too similar to Superion. Its such a shame because the robot mode and especially the vehicle mode of Scattershot are done quite well, but Betatron just disappoints. We'll have to wait and see if Takara swoops in and saves the day, because he really could do with a new head and if not that definitely a new deco on his head. As it is now, I can't fully recommend picking up Scattershot unless you really want more torsos for your collection.

Thanks for reading! You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned that there's no other Technobots, but that's because we don't really know that we're not getting them. Honestly all signs point to them coming out: this guy is Betatron after all, Ramhorn is obviously coming from Nosecone and the same leaker that told us about all the Titan Wars figures that were all confirmed has said that they are indeed coming out as slight retools. I think its way too early to complain about the lack of his team mates.

Reviews of Onslaught and Bruticus are incoming!

 

Great review!

Honestly he's growing on me and I've seen worse. Plus, I've come this far and have every Deluxe & Voyager minus this and Onslaught that I might as well pick him up for that 'complete' feel.

 

I'm probably gonna hold off on this one until there's a definite confirmation for the Technobots.

Hopefully they can re-release/repaint this guy to be more accurate

 

With all the remolding that was done on Scattershot, it's sad the combiner head was not part of that (kind of ironic that if CW Superion's head was more G1 toy-inspired instead of cartoon-based, it would work better for Computron)

I can sort of understand why the CompuBetaHyperGlobalMegaTron head was not new, as Computron's head isn't THAT different from Superion, but at least do the brown head & red face thing to give a little more accuracy and visual distinction.

 

Yeah, this is not a pick up unless we get the Technobot limbs or if Takara puts out a better looking scheme.

 

Great review Starscream GaGa. I wish you could be the official reviewer of TFW2005, your are THAT good.

 

Gonna have to wait for Takara and hope they retool the torso mode. The alt mode is good enough and the robot mode is passable (though it could be better compared to what they did with Cyclonus) but that combined mode is just awful. Way too similar to Superion. I'm thinking they called it Betatron because it's not even supposed to be Computron and they had to cheap out on retooling costs.

 

You're very sweet, thank you!  

 

I agree, great review as usual!  

What I think is even weirder is that they changed the color of Betatron's visor back from yellow to red (at least according to the box art, but maybe that was inaccurate to begin with) - and after unscrewing the head, I found that the plastic is white.

They basically could've painted it any color they wanted and yet made this out of it. Weird!

Bot and alt modes are great, however.

 

Isn't it just so considerate of Hasbro to give us a mass - retail release of Hate Plague Superion? It's not often that they do such things for us fans!!!

Similarly, I'll be avoiding this figure like the Hate Plague.

 

this damn toy...

why did they remold cyc so much instead of scattershot...

 

Is it bad that, looking at Grand Galvatron, I'm glad with the choice because I like him so much more than the Technobots? I'm afraid that if I had to choose between Computron and Grand Galvatron, the latter would win out every time.

 

I think what would have been more effective would have been using the tooling for Cyclonus's and Galvatronus's chests instead, while still having the remolded head and alt mode. Then it would at least not look just look like hate plague Superion.

 

I own a testshot of this and I was curious if the new wing parts were super flexible/soft. My testshot's wings look they are beginning to droop under their own weight.

 

This is horrible! How can Hasbro even think of letting this slide through to retail..

 

Hit it right in the head....couldve gone with the cgi render yet as usual, they manage to ruin him...half assed effort on whoever decided to give this a go ahead....horrid colors, lazy remold, etc I will wait for the takara version.

 

Agreed! Lets hope Takara bring the Scattershot back to life!!!

 

Very disappointed the gun barrel in the nose isn't a 5mm peg hole.

In fact I think they missed a trick here by not making the nose gun barrel the barrel of his gun. Have the gun peg in under the cockpit by itself instead of being in addition to a moulded in gun.

 

Two things bother me:

1) they had an opportunity to better hide the underslung robot, but instead completely ignored the underslung outline, making the ship mode far sleeker than necessary and thus highlighting the giant kibble even more.

2) didn't bother to blend that white forward section at all. The color abruptly stops while the details continue.