I really love that he has an ab crunch.

 

  Looks like he slipped on an invisible banana peel and is desperately trying to regain footing before his arms start to windmill.

 

Best deluxe since siege Hound.


Hey look its deluxe Superion , looool


*kapoom!*

 

Spoiler Alert:


Menasor !

 

Got myself an Impactor, also my first Impactor figure ever. It's a good figure for what it's trying to achieve, and it's an ok alternative for anyone who wants an Impactor figure without going for third-party or con-exclusive alternatives.

The robot mode is quite nice-looking from most angles, packed with servicable articulation and good size. That said, the hollow lower legs is quite an eyesore when viewed from certain angles and the headsculpt while ok for what it is, isn't for everyone. I do like that you can flip both hands for some extra 5mm ports (Which allows Impactor's signature "spear-harpoon hand" look to be recreated) which adds some play value however.




For some reason, some of the joint on my copy are a bit too tight for my taste, especially at the head.

The transformation is just ok, but the head has a hard time flip-out during transformation from tank mode to robot mode. Other than that, the tank mode while isn't the prettiest with the odd proportions of the tank turret being almost as big as the tank itself still serves its intended purpose and I like that the turret can rotate 360 degree in tank mode.

 

I've said it before but I am mad they are going hollow again for many figures. Earthrise has lot of hollowness coming up.

Their justification for shrinking figures for Siege was that they did it so that they would no longer be hollow thus "listening to the fans" and compromising with size. Should have known their long term plan was to hollow the figures out later and keep their small size. Now their prices are totally a ripoff.

 

I don't know where they actually said that, but Siege figures from the very first wave had hallow parts.

Siege figures have more paint and better articulation than we've seen in the past few lines before it.

 

Not nearly as hollow as combine wars Jetfire leader for example. Impactors legs are an example. Which siege figures have hollow gaps?

 

Well, from the first wave of deluxes, Sideswipe has hollow lower arms and thighs, as does Skytread. Hound has hollow thighs and his lower legs are hollow from the back. The partsformer guy has hallow lower back legs and hallow upper back. These aren't as obvious since they're smaller figures, but Ironhide, the other large deluxe, has a pretty hollow torso and lower arms are hallow form the bottom.

Impactor has those pretty big and obvious gaps on his lower legs but the gaps have always been there for the line. I'm not saying the gaps are good, but I don't think things have changed with Impactor. I would be dumb to say I'm happy the gaps are there, but I don't think they ruin any of these figures. I really do miss panels that cover the gaps that form when hands are swung out though, especially on larger figures like Voyager Megatron. For Voyagers and above, they should never leave those there.

 

Could someone post a size comparison with T30 Springer? I'm assuming he's too short but I'd like to know for sure. TIA.

 

In general, the only figures I find unacceptably hollow are the ones striving to be big.

Impactor is comparable in size to a fairly large Prime Wars deluxe.

Sure. All figures have some hollowness but I think it’s absolutism to nitpick Hound or Prowl’s hollow spaces. A figure can be “less hollow” without being “not at all hollow”.

Ironhide, Ratchet, and Impactor are the big offenders. And they’re considerably larger than other Deluxes.

The only Voyagers I have beef with are Apeface and Soundwave.

If price is no object when it comes to gap filling, everyone but Apeface has a third party kit. If you want zero gaps, ever, you can hit up Shapeways or buy MPs.

Impactor’s gaps bug me the most. Fortunately, he not only has color matched 3P kits but multiple kits.

I haven’t paid over $15 for the bulk of my Siege Deluxes. My Impactor was $12.25 with tax.

 

I'm glad you brought up examples. I'm talking about obvious gaps like impactor rather than others you mentioned that are hollow due to transforming etc.

They're getting more prominent on Earth rise.

 

I think it’s because Siege got to make up vehicles to match the robot modes they wanted.

In general, I don’t think the price hikes were tied to quality improvement.

They were tied to rising labor costs first and delayed responses to long term inflation and distribution costs and also investments at Hasbro. And customer willingness to pay. And higher grade plastic.

But we did get engineering quality spikes largely due to lack of gimmicks like cockpits or combiner ports and reduced size (freeing up some budget) and made up vehicle modes.

Some of the old limitations are returning with Earth vehicles. That said, these are 20% smaller simplified MPs whereas I think the early CHUG figures were closer to Alternators than MPs.

 

Grapples feet and thighs could have easily not been hollow despite earth mode.

I'm not saying they have to be solid plastic, but the insides just having visible holes looks so cheap. The insides of impactor lower legs are getting to the level of storing head Masters

 

One thing for sure, Impactor here didn't do too bad of a job when it comes to posability....

 

Im starting to think a shiny clear coat over the figure, and then a wash, with some scrath marks would make this pop.

 

The character doesn't mean much to me, so I kinda slept on this fig for a while, opting for Barricade, Mirage, and even Bluestreak instead, but finally got one recently. I like it better than expected. The orange and purple deco really pops, especially compared to the rest of the 'bots in much more "normal" colors. I also dig the way you can flip in the fists and plug in certain accessories to give him arm blasters. Or give him Ratchet's wrench and make him look like he lost a hand and had to get a quick and dirty claw grafted one.

 

It would probably work out nice given how intense the base colors are.

His alt mode screams crazy-ass Clanner ( from Battletech) main battle tank.

 

Mate I love your reviews. That handshake killed me lol.

 

I actually got this figure a while back. My original intention was just to use his parts to upgrade my FoC Impactor and make him stand out more from the Onslaught version of the mold. Unfortunately the paint doesn't match at all and none of the parts I wanted to use are going to work the way I wanted them to. Not going to go into too much detail but I will mention that this version of Impactor is much brighter in color than the FoC Impactor from a few years ago and I much prefer the darker color scheme.

I think maybe the Decepticon version that came in the 3 pack with Holo Mirage and Aragon might have been a darker color pallet. It's hard to tell from pictures cause the lighting can also effect how dark or light the colors look and I don't have that version in hand. But the Autobot Wrecker is very bright compared to the more muted colors of the FoC Impactor.

All that being said... I kinda like this guy more than I thought I would. I mean he's a character I know almost nothing about and I bought this figure just to scrap for parts but while he doesn't work the way I wanted him to he actually is a surprisingly good figure just on his own.

Articulation, the head is on a swivel which is a little tight on mine and I've noticed there's no screw in the back of his head and there's two pieces around the mushroom so while it's a cleaner look and that head isn't going to easily pop off the fact that there's no screw makes me think the head is just glued together and that it could potentially come apart over time. If it was a little bit of a looser joint I probably wouldn't worry about it.

The shoulders are on a swivel for forward/backward movement and kind of oddly rather than making use of a transformation hinge for outward movement because it's right there, there's a separate dedicated shoulder hinge which means the shoulders kind of technically have two outward hinges that when used both together allows you to pose him like a child in school raising his hand to ask permission to use the bathroom... I don't know why you want to do that but it's a thing you can do if you want to do it... I've been watching way too much Emgo... The cannon on his right shoulder can mostly get out of the way but the double hinge thing I just mentioned... only do that with the left arm otherwise you'll pop the cannon off it's hinge. It just pops right back on, it's a friction hinge so not a big deal if you pop it off. I'm also realizing this is why they didn't have the transformation double as a shoulder hinge cause it won't give enough clearance for that cannon but the actual intended shoulder hinge will.

Anyway, bicep swivels.... a wrist swivel... if you count rotating that spear thing as a wrist since it just pegs in. No swivels on his actual hands though. A waist swivel which I think is more for vehicle mode but hey nothing is obstructing it here so I'm counting it. If you unpeg his torso you can give him an ab crunch. Hips are on a shivel and a hinge for full range of motion. There's a swivel just above the knee.

The knees themselves are really impressive considering how the legs transform this could have easily gone wrong here. I don't know how the legs are managing to stay together considering there's a knee hinge and a transformation hinge all on the same joint, nothing seems to be holding these legs together and yet I'm sitting here bending these knees with no problems what so ever. What kind of witchcraft is this? Oh and he has an ankle tilt and the toes can tilt down due to transformation. Did I mention I've had this guy since Thanksgiving and I still have no idea how his knees work without his legs trying to come apart? WHY CAN'T EVERY FIGURE BE THIS GOOD!?

Transformation is just complex enough to make it a bit challenging but not frustrating without making it so simple that I feel like I'm barely doing anything at all. Basically it hits a nice balance that makes it a really fun figure to transform and to be honest it's been a long time since I've handled a figure like this that I really enjoyed transforming. He's also very solid and clean in both modes. Like there's no real kibble to speak of. It's just a very well engineered figure.

The vehicle mode has four little wheels. The turret can rotate thanks to the waist swivel I mentioned earlier. I wouldn't rotate it too far though because then you can see his obvious robot legs. The main cannon which was a hand held gun in robot mode can be swiveled up to attack enemies in the air. I'm not sure what the harpoon thing is suppose to be or do in this mode. Officially it's suppose to attach to the top of what was the shoulder cannon but I prefer to just leave it attached where it would be for robot mode. If you have the harpoon pegged in there you can also angle it upward.

Oh by the way I'm fully aware that those leg panels can only rotate in one direction and that the feet can't clear those claw things to move in that direction except even with the feet bent out of the way the entire leg still stays together. I have to hold both parts and rotate them in opposite directions when I want to transform them but normally if I just hold one part and move it in any direction the entire leg will move with it even with nothing holding those pieces together. That's what I find to be really odd considering how many other figures I own that have tried to autotransform on me because of friction pegs that just don't work. This thing actually stays together and will never come apart until I actually want it to and there are no pegs at all holding it together. It just seems to friction together and stays together until I want to transform it.

So yeah... I highly recommend this figure cause this is seriously the best figure I've messed with in YEARS. Maybe I lucked out on the QC cause the only real issue I have is how tight that neck joint is and I wouldn't even consider that a problem if his head weren't simply glued together. It the neck joint were a little bit looser this would be perfect. And it still might be, only time will tell if the head stays on or the glue eventually wears out and makes the head fall apart. Though if that does happen I could easily just reglue it.

It's also too bad the heads don't easily pop off because the Decepticon version has a slightly different head mold that looks more like the comics and I'm pretty sure a lot of people would want to put that head on the Autobot body but I'm fine with the figure as is.

Oh and there's a peg hole in his butt so you can put him on a flight stand if you have one... because that's what you want to do with a TANK is put it on a FLIGHT stand... See previously mentioned Emgo quote.

Oh not sure if anyone else has mentioned this but the harpoon this is also compatible with FX parts. I almost forgot to mention it myself because I keep forgetting FX parts are even a thing in this toy line mostly because I've never been a huge fan of FX parts but it's an unobtrusive gimmick that doesn't hinder the figures in any way so if you like that sort of thing I thought you should know about it.