Still not sure how I should attack the individual members of Bruticus here. Individually? In groups? Ah well. Let’s try Swindle and see how that works out.
Swindle’s the simplest of the Fall of Cybertron Combaticons and the most like the original Scramble City-style combiner components. His vehicle mode is a brick, it transforms pretty standardly into robot mode (hood folds down into chest, rear of vehicle folds out into legs, robot arms pull from the sides), and his leg and arm modes are basically bricks as well. This isn’t a knock on him! It’s actually kind of nice. The rest of the limbs go through crazy gymnastics to get into each mode, so Swindle is like a mini-vacation from them. Want to go from vehicle mode to leg mode? Stand it up on its ass! Want to go from leg mode to arm mode? Flip out one of the hands!
And, yeah, he can do both the left and the right arm. There’s a differently-thumbed fist inside each robot mode leg. The fist is sculpted in a relaxed position with a 5mm peghole in there.
If there’s a downside to him, it’s his robot mode shoulders. I wish they folded upwards more! As-is, his shoulders are kinda slumpy. He’s also one of the biggest robot modes of the set of five (tied with Onslaught), which is kind of odd for Swindle, who should be the smallest, but it makes sense considering how no-nonsense his transformation is. He’s efficient. (His size’ll work out pretty well when this mold is later used for Roadbuster.)
Apparently a few people have broken the tabs that connect the halves of his vehicle mode together more securely? This is not something I have experienced, but folks should be careful.
Oh, and maybe I should talk about the combiner connector ports. They’re very similar, to my recollection, to the original Scramble City-style connectors, but without using the heads of the robots. Onslaught has four block-shaped pegs on him, and each of the limbs has a connector piece that snaps around those blocks. The connector piece isn’t one solid mechanism, but a claptrap of different walls of plastic that close around the block. It takes some force to remove and connect the limbs, which is probably a good thing.
If I could change one thing about the toy, it’s that I’d put a peghole on his right robot mode arm so I could mount his gun on there cartoon-style.
This is your chance to get all your Fred Willard jokes out of your system.
Honestly, they’re more like Power Core Combiners than Scramble City, to my perception. While both use square pegs & sockets (unlike Energon’s octagonal ports), the limbs have sockets while the center figure has pegs, more like PCCs.
You can tell that they learned from Energon sockets, though, as the connector ports have good, stable ratchet joints connected to them, to ensure that they don’t give under the weight of the figure.
I dunno, the lack of autotransformation-unlocking inherent in the connection process kind of puts PCCs off the table for comparison for me.
The fact these have robot modes makes them completely incomparable. These guys are five robots. Power Core Combiners were one robot with interchangeable accessories.
For the sake of staying out of prison, Bruticus should avoid having Swindle be an arm at adult theaters.
I’m surprised there aren’t more Transformers into autoerotica.
In all seriousness, though, is it even possible to have linked to a pic of Swindle that begs any more to have a dick photoshopped into it?
Ooooh.. Swindle’s my homeboy. This is the figure I’m most looking forward to. Do you really think he’s big enough to do Roadbuster justice? I *so* want to recreate this: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Image:Slowmotionmoviewalkahm5.jpg
–but the only Mugen Calibur big enough to fill that roll is like.. ninety bucks.. :-/
He will definitely not be that big. I’m guessing he’s probably a tiny bit shorter than Generations Kup, for example. (Kup’s pretty tall.)
Boo. Some headswapping may occur, then. I already plan on popping Whirl’s noggin onto HFTD Tomahawk. Let’s see.. Who has a body that screams “Roadbuster”…
Swindle needs bigger eyes. That’s what I’ve always seen as his physical trait
I had to leave my Bruticus at home while I’m on vacation, but Swindle is the one guy I really can’t wait to take out and dink around with. I even brought his instructions with me. I, for some reason, have 0 Swindle’s even though he’s easily one of my most favorite ‘Cons. Can’t wait to see him in person. Am I crazy for LOVING his truck mode?
I just got my Bruticus in the mail today. I’ve notices all the joint ports are purple- maybe to see easier- all except Vortex’s. His is black. Why wouldn’t they go all purple, or all black?
That is indeed weird.