That’s disappointing. I wish the ball joints were ratchet joints. But I guess the ball joints help in robot mode. The box art and promo pics are very misleading.

 

See my edit, she can stand, I just wasn't doing it right. I just assumed she had to rely on something underneath to support her, but it's possible to get her off the ground on just the legs, and it's pretty stable if you flip the black parts upside down so the legs rest against the socket itself to stop them from splaying out. (there's soft ratchets in the legs themselves which can hold her up)

 

Thanks man! I’m going to have to transform her to robot mode and back, seems like a nightmare.

 

Just follow @Actar's video and it's a piece of cake:

Seriously, it's so much easy once you know the order of things. Every tab is increasingly secure and just keeps everything lined up as you go.

 

Mine can stand on just the spider legs, for what it's worth  

 

I can’t get the damn weapon clipped on in beast mode while also connected to the web and stand. So flimsy... also lost a leg that popped off...

 

This video helped a lot.

My two biggest gripes with this figure. I can't get the gun pegged in. When I try to press, the whole abdomen just collapses. Also, two legs just pop out whenever they want.

Also, any know what the 2nd cable is for? Can't find what these are supposed to plug into.

 

it’s an extra in case you break one

 

Finally got her yesterday. Spider mode is, admittedly, lacking, but it's not like she will ever be in it again. Bot mode is great, everything I ever wished for back when the show originally aired.

...also, she has...um...all kinds of perky anatomy going on. So someone certainly enjoyed designing and/or sculpting her.

 

Yeah, that Actar video definitely helped a lot.

 

How has it changed your opinion on beast mode? I noticed in your video you felt she was too loose in beast mode.

 

Where do you guys think this figure stands when compared to the rest of the Masterpiece Beast Wars line? I've got Optimus Primal, Cheetor, and Dinobot and was initially just focused on collecting the core season one Maximals. However, after seeing pictures of Blackarachnia and Megatron, I'm probably going to end up collecting the whole line.

 

Taken from the other thread, modified and updated slightly:

I'm going to rank them on three categories: Screen accuracy of Robot Mode, Screen accuracy of Beast Mode, The magic needed to achieve the transformation.
I'm including that third category because it is obviously not fair to compare Primal's transformation, which in the show mostly makes sense to Dinobot's transformation, in which his animation model basically vomits a robot.

So in terms of Robot mode accuracy, I rank them in the following:

1. Cheetor
2. Blackarachnia
3. Primal
4. Megatron
5. Dinobot

So let me now defend this ordering. I must say, in comparing Blackarachnia vs Cheetor in screen accuracy, it's a virtual tie. I was being SUPER nitpicky to find a way to break the tie. Initially I had cheetor as 1 and blackarachnia as 2, then I swapped them, then I went back to my initial rankings. Both of them have everything end up in the exact right spot and look exactly like their screen counterparts. The only real thing with Blackarachnia, the hourglass on her back is a bit higher than it is in the show, with it being more on her lower back. I'll also say her backpiece is slightly larger than on the show, and her spider legs are all the same length, compared to the animation Otherwise, these two are basically exact incarnations of the cartoon. Both cheetor and blackarachnia's faults are so minor you really need to go on a hunt for them.

Primal is in third only because there are a lot of gaps on him. Looking at him from the side you can see three obviously distinct lawyers, while his animation he is more cohesive. Otherwise, basically everything is correct. It's a hard to fault this form at all, but I feel as though this gappiness takes a little bit away from his "stepping out of the cartoon" enough to put him in third. Obviously, this is super subjective.

Megatron's backpack looks like crepe folded on itself a bunch of times. It has so many layers. From the front he's perfect though, but once you turn him sideways or view him from behind, the backpack really isn't a subtle thing. I love this figure, but that backpack is definitely the first thing mentioned on the list I'd personally call an "eyesore". I think nearly anyone can pick it up, even having not seen the show, and probably figure out that that backpack simply isn't accurate.

Dinobot is the most compromised in robot mode. Instead of giving him a backpack they made his chest area go back much further, making his actual shape inaccurate compared to the cartoon. Not only is he thicker, but he's also a bit boxier in the torso section, being fully round in the cartoon.

So in this regard, I think Blackarachnia is really at the top here with the least amount of compromises. She comes together extremely well into a very cohesive, screen accurate package.

Looking at beast mode, obviously we have a different story. My rankings would be as follows:

1. Megatron
2. Primal
3. Cheetor
4. Dinobot
5. Blackarachnia

Megatron is just about perfect. The only thing I'd dock him any points on would be the lack of his hand being able to touch. I've brought this up a lot in the Megatron thread, but to me the fact his hands cannot touch takes away such perfect character poses that I felt were pretty vital to the character in the show. Otherwise, it's a pretty flawless T-rex and looks absolutely georgous. The abilty to move around the eyes is also so fantastic for characterization.

Primal is a jump down from Megatron, not being quite perfect with white showing up on the back of his legs. But being able to be on two or four legs is a great move, and he really does look like his screen model. He's also much tighter in beast mode.

Cheetor has robot legs sticking out his back and a gap on his belly. Nothing too extreme, and the likeness is simply fantastic. Definitely more compromised than robot mode, but absolutely acceptible.

Dinobot is where we hit a line. The legs have the designs on the wrong side, the belly isn't quite accurate in colours, and obviously the side and back have robot legs sticking out. Personally, I LOVE his beast mode and think it's an aboslute success, but not everyone agrees, and that perspective is understandable. They have the shape basically right though, and from the front you can't see the robot legs. You still see the shoulder panels, but it's a really effective, expressive and well done beast mode overall, but far from perfect.

And finally, blackarachnia. If you compare her beast mode to the animation, it actually has all the right parts in the right places. It just kinda explodes from there. There is no angle where you won't be able to see something sticking out. The robot upper arms stick out the sides, the lower arms can be seen from the front. The robot legs are just... there. The parts that are right though are very right. The spider head looks fantastic, and the texturing is really great. Being able to actually dangle the spider from a thread as well as sticking it to the spider web gives it the additional authenticity it needed, because it doesn't fully stand on it's own (metaphorically, it actually can stand on its own for a lot of people).

Now let's talk about the magic that was needed in order to accomplish these feats, because the cartoon was not always forgiving. I'm going to rank the animation in terms of cheating.

1. Dinobot
2. Blackarachnia
3. Cheetor
4. Megatron
5 Primal

Dinobot's cartoon transformation simply makes no sense. The raptor sort of explodes and out of it comes a dinosaur. The raptor head ends up on the chest, but ends up looking nothing like the raptor head we started with. His colours change completely. He looks nothing like his toy. In terms of cheating in the show, this character ranks some of the highest, along with Terrasaur and the disappearing wings act.

Blackarachnia isn't too far behind Dinobot. He robot mode is so small and petit compared to the massive, bulbous spider, and so few of the spider elements end up convincingly on the robot. I don't think there is quite as much magic as Dinobot's figure is obviously so much larger than Blackarachnia that there is more space to add that magic.

Cheetor's beast head squishes and changes shape, his robot legs magically form from the beast legs, but otherwise his transformation is pretty self explanatory.

Megatron's design in the show matches the original toy quite a bit, actually, and his transformation sequence is basically an exact match to the toy. Except for one thing: The backpack panels just shink down magically.

Primal's transformation in the show pretty closely matches that from the original toy with his backpack sort of magically disappearing and legs forming some colour out of nowhere.

So looking at things overall, I think it's obvious what we are looking at with Blackarchnia. She's this tiny figure with a whole bunch of cheating required, and nowhere to store the magic. A few extra panels forming a larger backpack would definitely have helped form a better beast mode, but the outcome was one of the best robot modes we've had so far.

 

I've had it two days and been from beast to robot to beast again, I've broken something, Ive tried out all the articulation and accessories... so here is my review.

Beast mode

The first thing I noticed out of the box was how light she is, I think she's the lightest MP yet? Maybe MP-45 is as light/lighter? Either way she's all plastic and there's not much to her. The second thing I noticed was she was a mess. 'Thankfully' that's because she's mis-transformed in the box. Once you have it all 'tabbed' together and lined up it looks... fairly good. The robot knees are most jarring of visible robot kibble and sadly these are visible from just about every angle. Previous BWMPs have had varying degrees of robot kibble in beast mode and it's forgivable but here its probably the most obvious. The other issue I have with the beast mode is, for me at least, it doesn't like to stay that way. The more you manipulate the figure the more in starts to come apart. Where it tabs together it does so quite loosely, nothing really locks in place and if feels like some areas could do with securing with tabs. For example the 'rails' the legs sit on should be rotated up to make contact with the spider head, a popular mis-transformation... but totally forgivable as there's nothing there to hold them in place so they just sort of float there. All in all I was under the impression the alt mode would look better in person... it doesn't, the opposite in fact. The paint and sculpt are fine... great even. The texture and glossy paint and the detailing of the spider eyes and pedipalp in particular really recreate that creepy feel her alt mode had in the show. However outside of the nice deco very little effort appears to have been taken to disguise the fact this is the robot mode rolled into a ball.... but this really stretches the concept of Robots in Disguise to it's limit. Everywhere you look there's something glaring out at you and ruining the illusion, be it a knee, a foot, a shoulder or an elbow, there is no angle from which this looks like just a spider. To be fair I'm not sure this was totally avoidable, it's a small figure and there very little space to hide it in this more compact form but it certainly feels like the alt-mode severely suffers for the art that is the robot mode.



The articulation in this mode is less limited than you'd expect. The head can look up and down a fair way, can tilt side to side and both pedipalps are on hinges allowing them to open and close as far as you could possible need. All eight legs bend at the knee on a soft ratchet and 'connect' to the body by ball joints... but they don't connect to the body, you can push them up against it a bit to make it look like they do but on any close inspection they are 'floating' on rails underneath and it looks messy and disjointed. The upside to this is that those rails can be spun around to improve stability... because in the 'correct' configuration the spider had a lot of trouble supporting it's own weight. It's not impossible to get her to stand but it's a balancing act of distributing the weight well enough for the leg joints not to fail.. it's both frustrating and severely limits your options unless you want to start 'cheating' by braking the sculpt/using alternative configurations which in my experience leads to the beast mode falling apart again. it's infuriating and that seems the be the theme for the alt-mode for me.

As you'd expect with Beast Wars we have weapon storage in Beast Mode... sorta. The storage of the 'anchor' gun is pretty ingenious, the way it folds out to fill space the space between her robot legs and the spider abdomen is pretty cool. I only wish it wasn't such a half measure as with all the rests of the visible robot kibble it makes little no no difference. The anchor itself makes no attempt to hide, it simply tabs in to the robot arms underneath the spider. It's really not very elegant and its really difficult to get a strong connection on mine... which becomes an issue later. The 'butt-gun' also serves as the connection point for the stand and a second anchor complete with blue string/rope. You'd think connecting a string, using friction, to a part that itself isn't part off but only connected to to your £100+ figure in order to hang it precariously about your abode was a recipe for disaster.... but strangely no, it actually works surprisingly well possibly because the figure is so light. Again though, your milage may vary, there nothing stopping BA dropping off the rope.. it's just held there by friction and some very small tabs. The beast mode looks 'great' this way, or rather as good as it can do. Freed for the need to support its weight you can really take full advantage of the posable legs, head and palps...plus you'll mostly be looking at it top down which is easily the base angle to look at the alt-mode.



Not content with getting away with the small illconceived miracle that is the butt-based rope trick TakaraTomy decided to push their luck and use a similarly ludicrous method to connect the spider to the web. The suggested way to connect BA to the web beast mode is to connect via a transparent blue plastic clip that in turn connects to the 'anchor' that in turn is loosely connected to the underside of the spider... and it sucks! The whole process is fiddly, frustrating and expletive inducing. It's like playing Jenga or Kerplunk, every time you think you have it, everything falls to pieces and you have to start over again. Put simply, it's some terrible design... which is a real shame because if you can stand the frustration of getting her on there and its probably the best ways to display this mode.



Transformation

You either roll it up into a ball or unroll it from a ball. There really isn't much more to it than that, and yet going to beast mode from robot mode is just about the most frustrating time I've had with a Transformer in my entire life. To robot mode is easy, you don't even need to look at the instructions, it's all just hanging out of the alt-mode waiting to be unfolded. Folding it all back up on the other hand is an unsatisfying procedure. Now again my broken tab may have contributed towards my woes but getting everything lined up and tabbed in correctly isn't easy or at all intuitive.

Robot Mode

This is where this figure shines! The robot mode is fantastic... beautiful... gorgeous... breathtaking... unbelievable... [Insert your own superlative here]. The robot mode is easily the best thing about this figure, it looks spectacular and spot on animation accurate. The paint, detailing and sculpt are all perfect... almost too perfect in places like the weird texture effect on her lower legs designed to replicate the low res CGI graphics of the show. Thankfully in hand this actually looks pretty cool and serves to break up what might have simply been solid bronze/gold otherwise. The paint detailing all over the figure really brings her to life, from the metallic green used on her shoulders to the spider leg effect on her chest... I cant pick a single fault with it and that is super rare for me  



Unlike many MP robot modes of late theres no backpack here, no kibble (other than that which is show accurate). The proportions pretty much exactly match those of those show and despite her slender top heavy appearance she is surprisingly well balanced and stable. Indeed, if you didn't know any better you'd swear it was a non transforming action figure... and it moves like one too. The articulation here is unparalleled. She moves like a high end action figure from the likes of Tamashii Nations, Mezco or Medicom. She has all the articulation you'd want and then some, she even has drop down hips so she can pull off high kicks or cross her legs. Not all of this is as well tolerance as I'd like, the ankles, shoulders, thigh swivels and neck are tight and the knees and hips are a little loose. It all works but it's not as stable or easy to manipulate as you'd like or you'd experience with the aforementioned figures, add to that the fact the spider legs both get in the way and WILL fall off at every opportunity and although very posable posing the figure isn't as much fun as it could be. That said the range of movement is great and very character appropriate. Blackarachania was an acrobatic character, she demands this level of articulation and its very smart of TT to give her it.



To take full advantage of this wonderful articulation the stand can be utilised with or without the web effect. The bottom flap of her back can be lifted to reveal a connection port and although I found this a little tight of a fit it works. Part of me would prefer a clip or adaptor, this feels a bit too..delicate. Regardless the web makes an excellent backdrop to the figure and give her spider legs something to cling too.



Accessories.

Like with all Beast Wars MPs that came before it Blackarachnia comes with a selection of robot mode faces with different facial expressions. Here we have a straight 'stoic' face, a slight smirk and a screaming green eyes option "from that one time in that one episode". To be honest I would have preferred more variety of facial expressions and the ability to switch out the eyes... but this is fine I guess. Each face plate is well panted and sculpted and looks great in situ so I can't really complain.

The gun looks great, like everything other part of this figure its beautifully panted, detailed and sculpted. The non-roped anchor fits snuggly into the barrel of the weapon and looks exactly how it it did in the show. The rope variant connects to the gun the same place it does in alt-mode, which end up being the underside of the barrel. However the 'weight' of the rope makes it look like a string, rather than a rope or a web unless you have it pulled tight. It really would benefit from being made thinker or heavier o even with a wire in it for better posing potential.

The visor... "that thing from that one time in that one episode" accessory that i could easily do without. It's nice enough but it does nothing for me other than hint at a possible MP Tarantulas.. .and that really is just about the most exciting thing about it for me. Again it's panited nicely, it fits on her head snuggly and the soft plastic cable (of which you inexplicably get two of despite one being glued into the visor?!) appears to go nowhere...for now.

Last but not least(?) the stand... In my reckoning this was mainly included for three reasons. 1) to show off her excellent articulation particularly in robot mode. 2) To better facilitate posing of an at times unstable, unbalanced and unable to support itself figure particularly in alt-mode and more sinisterly... 3) to bulk out the release and help warrant charging more than Optimus Primal for this release!? But even forgetting that third depressing point the stand itself is pretty basic and not even new. It's one of the base sections of MP Dinobot's stand (no new moulding, it's identical) and the arm from the stand packaged with MP Tracks. The colour and finish of the plastics used don't even match, the bace is that matt metallic grey they used on Dinobot's stand and the arm glossy black... it's sloppy and throws up another issue. Because this stand was not designed for Blackacrachnia it isn't sympathetic to the sorts of poses you'll want to use it for. The arm was designed as a flight stand (for Tracks) so most of the articulation is at the top. BA isn't a flyer, she'd be much better of with am arm that bent at more regular intervals. Then she could be positioned just above the ground taking the weight off her legs for some good crawling posing... sadly to do this you basically have to position her in front of the stand because the arm is too long. A guess at least I now have a more suitable flight stand for Optimus Primal and any future BWMP flyer... look at me! I'm capable of finding a silver lining!

Thankfully in order to make the stand more interesting and visually coherent we have the web. This comes in four sections that snap together easily and both a two way connector and a clip to attach the web to the stand and then to the main figure. Credit where credit is due, the web looks fantastic. The hard, nicely sculpted, translucent dark blue/purple plastic works great a replicates the look of the energy webs she had Tarantulas used in the show perfectly. Although getting her on this in spider mode is a massive pain in the ass she looks great on this web in both modes.

Conclusion

Blackarachnia not my favourite character so maybe I'd feel differently if she was but this feels... lesser than the previous Beast War MPs. There's no question that captured her onscreen appearance in robot mode but for some reason she doesn't feel as high end or as expressive as the others. I cant quite put my finger on it, maybe it's materials, joint tolerances or engineering but there seems to be less of that MP magic here than Id usually expect.

That said theirs no denying she makes a beautiful display piece. She looks perfect in robot mode, and has the articulation needed to pull of just about any pose you want, plus the stand and rope allow for some very interesting and inventive display options. Which is great, as I'm a display in robot mode kinda guy. However what I have rather enjoyed about the Beast Wars MPs thus far is that are to varying degrees two action figures in one. BA doesn't pull that off nearly as well as her predecessors. The spider mode is severely compromised, fragile and difficult to pose. She also isn't is a fun Transformer, indeed transformation is almost laughable in it's half-arsed simplicity. Finally she's easily the most overpriced Beast Wars MP so far which is even harder to stomach given the criticisms I've just listed. Cheetor is IMO a better figure...he's half the price. Primal is a true masterpiece and a fraction cheaper. It's impossible to reconcile Blackarachnia's outrageous price tag even if you take the web and the stand into consideration.

In short I like the figure but I really don't feel like I've got my money's worth here. I don't feel the same level of joy the other BW MP have given me, she not as delightfully perfect as those other release. It's not that she's a bad figure she's just the worse of a good bunch.

 

@Booster Gold So I noticed that you put the anchor over top of the crotch piece in beast mode. I find it sticks a lot better if you put it underneath, as it then sits more flush. This might make it easier for you to attach it to the web.

Otherwise, great review and wonderful pictures!

 

Hrm? That's the way the anchor attachment feels most natural to me, and mine attaches to the web just fine.

What he mentions though is that the anchor keeps popping off on him, which isn't my experience at all. The anchor attaches to the claws on mine very securely. I can shake her by the anchor and it won't come off. Attaching her to the web is as easy as pushing her onto it.

 

I find mine attaches more securely behind the crotch piece.

 

It never occurred to me to put it behind the crotch peice. The instructions don't say to do so. It's something I don't mention on the review bit if feels unfinished that the crotch peice doest stow away some where. If I ever go back to beast mode I'll try it. Tbh it's not the biggest issue I have with that mode.

It's connects but not solidly enough that when you start manipulating the spider on the web it doesn't come apart. I'm glad yours works 'correctly' but it doesn't make it any less of a dumb idea not to connect the spider to the web by... the spider.

 

But the end that connects to the visor is smaller and doesn't fit. Cords are different

 

Mine are the same, All ends fit in the visor snugly


for the record my anchors peg in well, and dangling her from the sting is no problem from either spot