From Newsgroup: alt.toys.transformers

Dave's Transformers Age of the Primes Rant: Wreck N' Doom set 1

Carnivac (Wolfwire retool)
Fisitron (Detritus retool)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/AoP/WreckNDoom1

The Wreckers vs. Mayhem Attack Squad Amazon exclusive line continues,
but this is the only one I decided to pick up this time. I passed on
Sandstorm vs. Slugslinger and Spinister vs. Topspin as all of those are basically deco tweaks (for instance, Spinister is just another take on the off-model coloring in the comics, as opposed to the original version's comic colors). But these two are significant redecos and also characters that
either haven't gotten a toy since G1 (Carnivac) or only got even more
exclusive or hard to find toys (Fisitron/Ironfist). I was a little tempted
by the Diaclone colored Topspin, but only a little, and certainly not interested enough to pick up a slightly-altered Spinister with it.

https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Gen/DeluxeR2 - Wolfwire mold
https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Legacy/Deluxe7 - Detritus mold


CAPSULES

$50 for the set.

Carnivac: Original mold was recommended. This was a pretty clever use
of it to make a relatively obscure character, it doesn't really fix the
issues with the main figure, but does replace the pretty meh rifle with a better one.

Fisitron: Original mold was recommended. A new head, roof, and weapons make a huge difference, although some of the excessive paint coatings cause some problems.

Set overall: Recommended. Zero buyer's regret on my part, and it's nice to have an Ironfist/Fisitron toy without spending through the nose on it.


RANTS

Packaging: Like most online or mostly-only exclusives they didn't bother with a window box, instead using the entire front of the box for art of Carnivac (in beast mode) leaping in attack at Fisitron (robot mode). The box is 10" (25cm) wide, 9" (23cm) tall, and 2.5" (6.5cm) deep. The upper corners have the transformation cartouches, with a wolf head for Carnivac and a semitractor for Fisitron. The very bottom has the two names with the Mayhem Attack Squad and Wreckers subfaction symbols and a "V/S" between them under a tan "WRECK 'N DOOM COLLECTION" badge. The packaging departs from the usual
Age of the Primes style in that the right, left, and top sides just recycle slices of the front panel art, although the top side realigns the two to be
at the same level and puts a big V/S (yes, they put a line between/behind the
V and the S in both cases) between them. The right panel has Fisitron and
his nameplate at the bottom, the left has Carnivac with his nameplate at the bottom. The back has renders of both modes, plus a round inset in the middle with Decepticon Survivor (the Titan Master) in both modes. Survivor's faceplate is based on the comics design rather than the G1 toy design. The bottom panel has the usual legalese.
The inner tray isn't just brown cardboard, the front face is gloss
white. Both figures are in robot mode, with all of their shared accessories together in a single tissue bundle along the bottom edge. The chests are protected by flexible clear plastic sheet rather than the usual hard plastic shell. The shared instruction shet in grayscale with bright blue accents is loose behind the tray.

Background: Carnivac was a member of the Decepticon Mayhem Squad in the
UK comics, a Pretender Beast whose inner robot turned into a wolf that went inside a bigger wolf shell. Kinda obscure, and he hasn't gotten a toy
between G1 and now although that didn't stop me from making a silly kitbash
of him: https://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/chibicarnivac1.JPG Survivor is a new character, not based on any previous Headmaster, but named after the adhoc group formed by the surviving (hence the name) Wreckers and Mayhem Attack
Squad members after the Time Wars arc in the UK comics. Carnivac was the one who suggested they say "screw you" to their respective chains of command and team up. (The Doylist reason for this was that none of them appeared in the
US comics, just in the UK stories that happened in between the US reprints,
so an excuse was needed to keep them from joining up with the Earth-bound Autobots and Decepticons.)
Fisitron started as Ironfist, one of the European-exclusive Lightformer with a sort of Viewmaster-ish scope gimmick. He later got used in the IDW Wreckers comics as a Wrecker fanboy who earned a place on the team as the reader identification character. Fisitron was his online handle, an anagram
of Ironfist. The Watsonian reason was to be all mysterious as an Awesome Online Source, IIRC. The Doylist reason is because he never defeated Shou
Lou the Undying or the Marvel trademark department. This toy is in the
comics colors rather than the Ironfist toy colors. Interestingly, while the kinda-Hummvee altmode is a lot closer to the shape of the Siege Hound mold at the root of the mold family, this is a Panda's Thumb sort of retool of
Detritus back to the Hummvee shape.


DECEPTICON: CARNIVAC
SUBGROUP: Mayhem Attack Squad
Assortment: G1376
Altmode: Robotic Wolf
Transformation Difficulty: 18 steps
Previous Name Use: G1
Previous Mold Use: Titans Return
Origin Universe: G1

Packaging: Six ties hold the robot to the inner tray, there's clear plastic wrapped around the upper body, and a rubber band holds the head in place. The tail-sword and rifle are in the shared tissue bundle.

Color Swaps: Looks like this is a case where there were multiple sprues
of each color. A dark teal plastic that's close to Wolfwire's is in most of the places Wolfwire's teal goes, and purple goes all of the places Wolfwire
is yellow. However, the thighs and beast paws are purple too. The very
light gray plastic on Wolfwire becomes purple except for the torso and legs
of the Titan Master, which are a sort of bronze on Survivor. The clear red plastic, where those pieces are retained, is replaced by purple plastic. The beast mode lower jaw is totally covered in paint, so I can't confirm it's purple plastic, but since the other option would be bronze plastic that wouldn't need paint, it seems likely. Both of the new weapons are purple plastic slathered with paint.

Paint Applications: In robot mode, a sort of dark tan that might be intended as dull bronze is used on most of the chestplate, all but the pegs
on the rifle, almost all of the surface of the shin pieces, and the entire surface of the robot toes. There's dark teal paint on the shoulder front panels and covers all but the side pegs and hilt of the melee weapon. The
face is light metallic blue with white on the visor eyes, a no-outline Decepticon symbol is printed in purple on the center of the chest.
In beast mode, the lower jaw is covered in that dark tan paint, with silver on the inside of the mouth both top and bottom (teeth included). The eyes and a mask-like area around them are painted white to give the
impression of the visor the inner wolf mode had on the G1 toy (it'd be a
simple stickering job with white sticker stock if you want to cover the
molded eyes entirely). A small orange Mayhem Attack Squad symbol is printed
on the back, just rearward of the 5mm socket.
Survivor has a metallic light purple face and a purple vent on the chest in addition to the face paint apps for head mode.

Mold Changes: The main figure has a new backplate that lacks the
cut-outs for the no-longer-present clear red parts, but added a 5mm socket
near the hinge (covered by the beast head in robot mode) for mounting the
rifle on the back. It also has a rectangular hole in back, which doesn't
seem to be necessary as Survivor's head doesn't come close to hitting the
roof of the new backplate...and the hole is smaller than Survivor's head anyway, but too big to hold the heel spur securely for a "ride on top" configuration. I need to use a knife to open the backplate, it's really tightly secured in beast mode and my nails are not strong enough.
The new rifle doesn't bother with the "gunner seat" gimmick shared by
all the Titan Masters, but since Wolfwire's was possibly the worst of those,
no big loss here. The shape is closely modeled on G1 Carnivac's rifle, but without the secondary smaller peg used by the inner robot. Also, where the original had a hole all the way through just ahead of the main grip, this has
a 5mm socket on the left side and a 5mm peg on the right, so it can be
attached to the left hip instead of the back in beast mode if you like. 3" (7.5cm) long, painted entirely dark tan except for the grip peg, the right
side peg, and the left side socket. The 3mm stud at the tip is painted over, but that's really only a problem if you're using a rigid 3D-printed Fire
Blast. Note, the figure doesn't have any 5mm pegs, the 5mm socket seems to
be purely aesthetic unless you want to stick the knife-tail on the rifle.
The side peg is officially for storing the rifle on the left shoulder.
The beast mode tail turns into a bladed weapon for the robot just like
on Wolfwire (G1 Carnivac's inner tail was not removable), it's significantly shorters, I'd call it more of a big knife than a sword. A little under 2.5" (6cm) long, it has a long 5mm rod grip that has a tab sticking out the end to keep it from rotating when plugged into the wolf butt. It has a 5mm peg on either side of the root of the blade, the instructions suggest using them to store the blade on the shoulderpad socket in robot mode.
Survivor gets a new faceplate piece based on the comics appearance of Carnivac, which has a somewhat smirking expression.

Other Notes: I couldn't get the forearm panels open for transformation without completely removing them, the snap-shut bits are stronger than the snap-together hinges.
I suppose one advantage of everything being done digitally
these days is that even a nine year old mold can be dusted off and tweaked
for an exclusive. Maybe they needed to make new tooling, maybe they didn't, but the engineering work was already done. Of course, since they did redeco the Wolfwire mold in 2021 for the Walmart retro line, "didn't get rid of the tooling" does seem plausible.

Overall: It still has the little frustrations of the Wolfwire mold, the new tooling didn't change that, although it did give the figure a better
rifle. I wouldn't have picked up a set just for this, but I am kinda glad
that of the 2025 Wreck N' Doom sets, they put both "retooled as a new character" figures together rather than splitting them up among the color variants.


AUTOBOT: FISITRON
SUBGROUP: Wreckers
Assortment: G1376
Altmode: Hummvee with a big weapon turret add-on
Transformation Difficulty: 15 steps
Previous Name Use: Only club exclusives
Previous Mold Use: Legacy (but its lineage goes back to Siege)
Origin Universe: IDWG1

Packaging: Five plastic ties hold the robot to the inner tray, there's plastic wrapped around the torso, and the weapons are in the shared tissue bundle.

Color Swaps: Brown becomes light pearly yellow, pale gold plasric
becomes medium-dark blue plastic. Most of the light tan plastic becomes slightly silvery medium-light gray plastic, except for the following which become blue: shoulder roots, heels, and head. The black of the tires and pelvis is now a very dark gray.

Paint Applications: A lot of blue paint (good hue match, but glossier)
on the forearms and toes, plus on the kneecaps. Light yellow paint
absolutely coats the pelvis and all but the main peg of the rifle. It's also found on the center circle of the backpack's ammo drum thng and a panel
detail on the backpack itself. Dull silver on the faceplate, the back of the panel behind the head, the bumper-mounted lights, winch, hubcaps, and back ducts of the backpack/turret. The front bumper is matte black, the eyes are metallic light blue. There's a small Autobot symbol printed on the hood ornament position of the chest.
In vehicle mode, the windshield and windows are light metallic blue.
The entire roof and most of the rear section of the roof are painted dull silver but it leaves the rear vents and back surface unpainted blue. A metallic blue Wreckers symbol is printed on the left side of the rear roof piece.

Mold Changes: The new pieces are the head, all weapons and accessories, and the windshield piece is replaced by two pieces that turn into a complete roof attached to the windshield. All of the new pieces are made of blue plastic, although the roof front piece is fully coated in dull silver and matches the gray plastic very well.
The head is build with a round helmet shape and a faceplate that has two diagonal vent cuts on either side of the nose.
The backpack is based on the huge Lightformer projector turret of the original Ironfist, but naturally rather smaller since it doesn't have to make room for a flashlight inside. As a backpack it looks kind of light a jetpack with two rectangular thrusters, although these bits are the business end of
the turret mode. It's roughly square 1.75" (4cm) on a side and less than 1cm thick not counting the 5mm peg on the underside. The right side has a gap in the "thruster" part in front and another in back to let you store the rifle inside it for turret mode. There's also a 5mm socket on either side to let
you store the rifle outside the backpack in robot mode, but the inner storage doesn't prevent the backpack from fitting on the robot's back. There's a 5mm socket on the outer surface on the rifle's side for attaching the ammo drum/shield accessory.
The ammo drum is a disk 30mm across and about 7mm thick with a 5mm peg on the backside, it can be put on either forearm as a shield but it does seem to be intended as an ammunition supply for the turret. It has 12 wedge-like divisions around the outside and then a circle made of many concentric rings that's 17mm across in the middle (8 rings, although the fourth from the
center is oddly thinner than the rest).
Based on G1 Ironfist's rifle but with a lot of hollowness, this is 3" (7.5cm) long with an unpainted 5mm grip near the back, a painted-over very short 5mm peg on the left side that goes into a socket under the turret
shell, and a painted-over 3mm stud at the muzzle end. The left side peg will stay put in the right forearm socket, but not in either of the side sockets
on the backpack.

Other Notes: As a heavily modified Siege mold, it does retain the same
3mm studs as Detritus has. The paint on the toes does make them prone to popping off more easily as the snap-on bits are stressed.
The new roof has a pretty big gap in it, but the turret is meant to
cover it up. The roof also makes it a little trickier to get the boots in place for transformation.

Overall: To be honest, I didn't expect this to be a toy at all, much
less one so close in spirit to the character. The thick paint causes some problems, and transformation is made a bit trickier by the new roof, but otherwise a good job.

Set Overall: Worth picking up. Two characters who haven't gotten a
proper toy since G1 outside of subscription stuff and 3P, and while both implementations had flaws, they're not major in either case.


Dave Van Domelen, now to get on the Studio Series Devastator stuff.

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