From Newsgroup: alt.toys.transformers

Dave's Transformers Age of the Primes Rant: Voyager wave 3

The Thirteen Alpha Trion (spaceship)

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

The wavemate is Flatline, a black and red redeco of Red Alert. I wasn't really thrilled by the mold, and while Flatline does pre-exist this line I
have no particular attachment to him, so I'll be skipping the toy.
This is a younger version of G1 Alpha Trion, more like his A3 appearance in War Dawn. There's also a Studio Series Voyager Alpha Trion due next year, but that's the TFOne unicorn-lion version.


CAPSULE

$35 price point (soon to go to $43).

Alpha Trion: Decent robot mode circa Optimus Prime's origin in G1, transformation is decent, altmode had to come up with something out of whole cloth and does a decent job of capturing the feel of G1 Cybertronian
designs. Recommended.


RANT

Packaging: Standard Age of the Primes Voyager box. The right side of
the box has the slice of the Primes gallery that includes a much more beardy Alpha Trion holding a different-looking Covenant of Primus.
The back of the box has several insets. The one at the top shows the robot mode holding out an Autobot symbol as if to offer it to a young Optimus Prime. The middle right inset shows the cloak being used as a shield. The lower left has the relic, labeled in Cybertronian font as "QUILL AND COVENANT BOOK." (The Quill his his special artifact, with which he writes in the Covenant of Primus.) The Covenant is open, revealing the text (again in Cybertronian) "TILL ALL ARE ONE" over Alpha Trion's diamond of nine diamonds sigil. The main robot render has him writing in the Covenant with the Quill, but because of the limitations of a Voyager he's just holding the Quill in
his fist with the nib sticking out the bottom and writing like a kindergarden student holding a giant crayon. "May the history of your times be written in crayon," does seem like it has potential as a curse. (The package art shows him holding the Quill in a far more sensible fashion.)


THE THIRTEEN: ALPHA TRION
Assortment: G1020
Altmode: Spaceship
Transformation Difficulty: 22 steps
Previous Name Use: TR, PotP, Legacy, Cyberverse, TFOne
Previous Mold Use: None
Origin Universe: G1 Aligned

Packaging: The robot is held into the inner tray with two double-strand plastic ties (belly and ankles) and three single-strand ties. A single tie holds the shield in the lower right, a single tie holds the Covenant at the
top of the left panel, and a tissue bundle (with a new pattern with hexagons and larger Autobot symbols than the previous tissue) has the Quill and a
couple of pegs that go on the shoulders. Because the Covenant is closed, you can't check for printing errors like the one mine had, sigh. (Yeah yeah, I ordered it online so I couldn't check for any kind of error, but some of
y'all will be buying it off the shelf.) The Autobot symbol shown on the box back is simply pegged into Alpha Trion's belly. Is there a way to push it
out from behind? Of course not, you'll need a knife or long-and-strong nails to get it out.
For some reason, the instructions were folded over one more time into a
U behind the card, maybe to stop them rattling around. They have the usual "how to go from packaged mode to proper robot mode" instructions, which
involve putting the little pegs into the shoudler 5mm sockets, folding out
the heels, and attaching the shield as a buttcape. The heels seem designed
to be impossible to get a grip on even with long fingernails, so I had to use
a knife to get them out. Forget the Quill, this toy should've come with a knife.
The entire front of the instructions is stuff other than "robot to vehicle" steps, various ways to use and store the accessories.

Robot Mode: Okay, so this toy's job is to capture the G1 cartoon "Floro Dery" aesthetic as much as possible, regardless of the impact this has on transformation. This is pretty closely modeled on his "middle aged"
appearance from War Dawn, with just a mustache rather than the full beard but already having some eyebrow growth, and the shorter cloak than his older self tended to wear. Note that his shoulderpads are visually meant to evoke a
cloak that wraps around the shoulders, so while there's hinges that let them lift up, they're supposed to stay snug against the upper arms. Molded
details on the chest continue the line and color of the shoulderpads, which actually connected all the way to his sternum in the animation model, but
doing that with the toy would severely limit range of motion even if they
made things rubbery. The spikes on the shoulderpads are blunt pegs like tiny pudding cups, although I'm sure someone has already 3-D printed replacements that are pointy. Because they're using the War Dawn design which gave him an Autobot symbol on his belly, this is the rare Prime to have a faction symbol (most are implied to be as they looked before the Autobots or Decepticons existed as factions). And because he handed an Autobot symbol to someone at least once, his belly symbol is (technically) removable so he can hold it out like Rey holding out Luke's lightsaber. (Mind you, A-3 also had an Autobot symbol back when his mustache was still dark and not white, so this guy was a very early adopter.)
6.5" (16.5cm) tall in mostly a mix of purple, light gray, and rust red, with some incongruous bits of blue. Rust red plastic is used for the head, torso, upper arms, pelvis, and the covers of the Covenant. Purple plastic is used for the shoulderpads, shoulderpad-extension bits on the chest, forearms, boots (but not the heels), and a lot of the backpack kibble. Light gray plastic is used for the shoulder not-spikes, hands, thighs, toes. and the Quill. Oddly, a slightly lighter than medium blue plastic is used for
several hinges in the backpack and the few pieces that aren't purple, as well as making the heel spurs stick out like sore thumbs. The kneecaps are also
on bright blue plastic hinges, but those aren't visible in this mode (or in vehicle mode, really, just during transformation). The belly Autobot symbol and the pages of the Covenant are clear red, as is the cockpit on the
backpack.
They got a dull silver paint that gets pretty close to looking like the light gray plastic, and used it for the face, the lower sternum, the belly,
the area around the belt buckle, the "vest" part of the torso, the rings
around the shoulder sockets the part of the forearm closest to the elbow, and the toes, plus some vehicle mode bits I'll cover below. Hm, the silver on
the forearms looks a lot shinier, but that might be a result of the
underlying plastic being smoother, it's hard to tell without actually
removing the paint. Most of the helmet appears to have been painted purple (good match to the plastic) and then the non-horn parts painted over that in
a garnet metallic paint that is not a great match for the rust-red plastic.
I guess that made for cheaper masking than trying to just paint the purple parts and leave the top of the helmet unpainted. The mask/eyebrows are
painted white, as is the mustache, and the eyes are bright blue. The paint
in mine is pretty sloppy on the head, with garnet paint on the mask, eye
paint going outside the borders of the eyes, and extra eyes painted on the
back of the helmet in which I'm guessing was an accident involving the head
not being ejected from the holder properly and getting a second go at the
light blue. Also a thread of garnet paint going up the back of the left
horn. Back to where they wanted colors, the round belt buckle detail is painted metallic blue, and there's more garnet on the undersides of the forearms. The Autobot symbol has silver on the raised outline bits, and the pages of the Covenant are printed in silver.
The neck is an unusual hinge and swivel situation, with the hing being where it meets the torso, so it can tilt forwards to look down at the
Convenant or back for transformation. Simple swivel waist, almost entirely blocked by the cape kibble. The shoulders are pinned hinge and swivel joints with the shoulderpads sharing the pin...nothing about the articulation
prevents the shoulderpads from being locked down in animation-accurate position, but I guess this was cheaper. Upper arm swivels, hinge elbows, and wrists hinged to bend inwards for transformation. The lack of wrist swivels makes it harder to pose him actually writing in the book. There's mitten- hinges at the base of the finger chunks, in theory allowing the figure to
hold the Autobot symbol out to someone. In practice, it's not a very good grip. The hips are pinned hinge and swivel joints, with pelvis skirt
sections hinged to lift out of the way. Upper thigh swivels, hinge knees, instep hinges, and you can bend the toes or heels down on very stiff hinges.
The hands can hold 5mm pegs whether or not the fingers are closed around things. There's 5mm sockets on the outer faces of the forearms, on the outer faces of the shoulderpads (dedicated to the non-spikes normally, but the instructions suggest moving them around), the upper spine, the outer faces of the boots, and the undersides of the heels. There's 3mm posts sticking out
of the wrists that are used as transformation connectors, but I suppose you could attach an "impact" style Fire Blast to a wrist to represent him
blocking a shot with his arm. They're also used to stabilize the shield.
The Covenant (of Primus) is an undecorated tome with some shallow molded thin vertical rectangles along the bottom edge of the back cover: three
lines, then a gap, then two more. At the bottom of the blank front cover is
a 5mm peg used for holding the book. The covers are unpainted rust red plastic, and there's two thick pages inside made of clear red plastic. The first page is molded like a video tape player with a screen showing a printed Cybertron orb at the top, then a molded cassette tape slot with cassette in
it (data tape), and at the bottom the anachronistic buttons for record (circle), play (triangle pointing right), stop (square), rewind (two
triangles pointed left) and fast-forwards (two triangles pointed right). I guess they wanted an excuse for Soundwave to have these buttons even in a pre-Earth mode? Prying the two pages apart reveals the second page printed
on as noted up in the packaging section, each word on its own line. Below
them should be the nine-diamond Alpha Trion symbol (every Prime in this line gets their personal symbol on their Relic somewhere), but mine is smudged. Neither page has anything printed on its back.
The Quill is a robotic bird feather attached to a cylinder that's 5mm in diameter and 7mm long with thin rectangular slits on either side for
connecting to tabs in the buttcape. The nib is a gently tapering section
with a rounded tip, 13mm long and tapering from a diameter of 3.7mm down to 2.7mm, rounded to make it harder for Fire Blasts to get a grip, although one with a sufficiently deep socket can be jammed on hard enough to stick. The whole thing is 2.25" (5.5cm) long and has no paint, although it could stand some energy effect paint in some of the molded details. As already noted,
the figure can't really hold it as a pen very well, but the instructions suggest using it as a short sword...the pen IS the sword. It's hard to get
it into the hand, but the diameter is closer to 4.8mm or 4.9mm, so the
problem is with the hands being too narrow.
Using the shield isn't just a matter of detaching the buttcape and attaching it to the forearm, the wing pieces need to be separated and swung around to the other side of the blue core. It's made of two purple winglet pieces connected to a blue plastic core by two blue plastic struts, with a folding blue plastic 5mm peg for attachment to the butt or the forearm.
Folded up either way it's 2.75" (7cm) wide and 2.25" (6cm) long. It attaches via the 5mm peg in a forearm 5mm socket and then the wrist's 3mm peg goes
into a 3mm socket on the back. When in shield configuration, it cannot be
used to store the Quill. In buttcape configuration, it connects to the 5mm socket in the back of the belt and the rectangule tab on the butt goes into
an appropriate slot to stabilize it. In either configuration, it's mirror-symmetric, so you can store the Quill on either side.
The removable Autobot symbol is 12mm tall and backed by a very short 5mm peg behind the forehead (it's not quite 3mm long). I suspect that if the box back inset wasn't purely a render, it cheated to get the symbol to stay in
the position shown...I can barely balance it like that, and the slightest motion or even breathing in its direction makes it fall out.

Transformation: Despite not turning into an identifiable vehicle, I was able to mostly transform this without needing the instructions. However, I
hit an impass when trying to figure out where the Covenant stored, and the answer was buried in the middle of the instructions: the kneecap pieces need
to come out on struts so they snug up against the wrist stumps (the pegs of those go into sockets on the kneecaps). This frees up exactly enough space between the kneecaps to tab the Covenant onto the thighs.
Anyway, the cape kinda opens up in the middle so a blue piece can fold through the middle and partially cover the head once it tilts back. Fists
fold into the forearms, turn the waist 180 degrees now that the lifted cape allows this, turn the boots outwards and fold the toes and heels down (the
toes required so much force on mine I started to wonder if they were even supposed to do so), snap the backs of the boots together. Bend the mid-torso hinge (which is utterly blocked from moving by the cape in robot mode). Pull the kneecaps out, fold some teardrop-ish panels out from the sides of the
cape and fold it down. Squeeze until the little tabs on the underside of the cape go into slots on the boots, which will let you position the kneecaps
more precisely. NOW the arms can be folded in to lock onto tabs on the sides of the cape and with the wrist pegs going into holes on the kneecaps. Unfold the wings from the buttcape and align tabs and slots on them with the
forearms and kneecaps. Then squeeze everything to make sure tabs that came loose along the way all go back in the right places, because they WILL come loose. Once you do this, unless your copy has SIGNIFICANT manufacturing defects, it should all hold together pretty solidly. Until this point,
though, it'll feel like it won't ever stay together. (My initial incorrect transformation without the kneecaps was pretty unstable.)
Going back to robot mode is fairly easy as long as you make sure to
unlock things in the right order. If you can't make something move, it's probably not supposed to move yet.

Altmode: Between the toes pointed as the nose, the Zoids-like (but not openable) cockpit set pretty far back on top, and the somewhat half-hearted attempts to hide robot bits, I am reminded of the Cybertron Starscream toys.
I don't recall Alpha Trion ever transforming in the original cartoon, but
this does at least feel right for Dery-style space ship designs. The blue piece partially covering the head has the barest hint of a 2mm tall tail fin, so the comparison to Starscream isn't as good as it could be. If there ever was an official design for his altmode, it's not in the Ark compendium or on TFWiki. (Alpha Trion wasn't in the original Marvel guidebook, and the later IDW More than Meets the Eye doesn't show an altmode either.)
One problem this mode does have is that in a few cases colors that are clearly supposed to match up don't even come close. Like, MAYBE the metallic blue paint isn't supposed to match the blue plastic even though the geometry suggests it should, but the metallic garnet paint on the cape doesn't even remotely match the garnet paint on the forearms. I think I can match the forearm paint, I'll need to go back and fix up the cape parts. (Maybe the
blue plastic was supposed to be more pearl-blue instead of gloss blue? Some
of the metallic blue paint is on a hinge, though, so painting over it doesn't feel like a great idea.) Anyway, I ended up painting the red stripe and
adding detail to the Quill, http://www.dvandom.com/kitbash/AoPAlphaMod.JPG
for a few pictures.
So, it's roughly an arrowhead sort of shape 6" (15cm) long and 4.5" (10.5cm) wide near the back, with more blue and less silver/gray and rust red in the mix. Mostly purple, really. A few bits of blue plastic are visible (the head-cover in back top, hinge roots for the side panels near the nose, a little bit of cape center at the front of the painted blue stripe), the only rust plastic really visible is part of the upper arms and part of the upper torso in back, and almost no gray plastic is visible in this mode (just the shoulder not-spikes and a little bit of the wrist joints). The Zoids-ish cockpit is clear red plastic with silver paint backing it, but otherwise the vehicle shell is overwhelmingly purple plastic.
So, there's the aforementioned blue metallic paint running in a strip
down the centerline connecting the head-cover to a little bit of blue plastic poking out the tip, and it doesn't match the plastic at all. The garnet
paint from the forearms connects to a very faded garnet paint curve that
swoops in towards the central blue stripe. The panels on the sides near the front have much of their surface painted silver. The Autobot symbol is on
the bottom in this mode, but you can remove it and put it on top of the
cockpit if you want.
The top-of-spine 5mm socket is now on top of the cockpit section, the forearm sockets and shoulder sockets point out to the sides, and the
boot-side sockets are on the underside near the front. There's also a
freshly revealed 3mm socket in the blue panel connecting the shield wings. There is no movable landing gear, but there's little spines sticking out in front just far enough that the Covenant doesn't have to touch the ground.

Overall: A few bits that need a knife for transformation, but it's possible I just got an unusually stiff-jointed copy. Otherwise, good robot mode, decent transformation and altmode, if with a significant paint
mismatch.


Dave Van Domelen, actually finished the review a few days before posting but forgot to do the capsule and post it.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2