From Newsgroup: alt.toys.transformers

Dave's Transformers Rant: Swapticons wave 2

Clench and Nemesis Prime (Ultra Magnus and Optimus Prime redecos)
Starscream and Slipstream (jets)
Dinobot Snarl and Grimlock (T.rex front and stegosaur back)
Ravage and Shadow Panther (Tigatron and Cheetor redecos)
Desert Dunes 5-pack
Optimus Prime and Autobot Hound (Optimus and Ultra Magnus redecos)
Ramjet and Sandstorm (redecos of Starscream and Slipstream)
Scorponok (front end of scorpion)

Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Artifacts/Swapticon2

Note, the 5-pack became available before the new 2-packs did, so while technically Ramjet and Sandstorm are the reuse of the molds, I reviewed them first and will cover Slipstream and Starscream as redecos if I ever find
them. These seem to be functionally if not officially Walmart exclusives.

$8-10 for the two-packs, $20 for the five-pack. Overall recommendation: Mildly recommended, mostly for those who like fidget toys. Not really worth getting all the redecos unless you really like the characters involved, but
if you did get the first 5-pack you'll probably want this one so you have
both Scorponoks. For reasons discussed below, you might want the Grimlock/ Snarl set even if you get none of the rest of this wave.

Packaging: Same as wave 1. Nowhere on the package is the Desert Dunes
set named, I only know the name from TFWiki. While the nameplates give the characters faction symbols, the actual toys lack 'em.

Individual notes: I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, these are basically fidget toys and there's not a whole lot to them. In fact, some of them could've had a little more play value with minor changes but no one thought to bother. It's worth noting that they don't have faction symbols, although many have nice flat spots for aftermarket labels.
The back of the two-pack cards give numbers to the duos.

Clench and Nemesis Prime (Ultra Magnus and Optimus Prime redecos): Black redecos, as one might expect. Nemesis Prime is Optimus Prime, Clench is
Ultra Magnus. 1 and 2 on the package back. While I was tempted to pass on
the Shadow Panther/Ravage set because the chunky kitty looks kinda stupid, I was tempted to pass on this because I already have two versions of the mold.
Be the fact it's Obscure Character Revival in Clench had me slightly more inclined to get this set. It helps that it's not just a Black Redeco, in
fact the only black plastic is the tires, heads, and collars.
Nemesis Prime hs mostly a dark charcoal gray, with silvery light gray
arms (darker than Optimus's arms, though) in addition to the black parts already mentioned. They somehow make a faceplate smirk, using a scar across
it to look like a lopsided grin. The chest windows and real windows are dark magenta, and like Optimus they just painted across the center bar. Dark gunmetal for the abdomen grill, actual grill, and pelgis. Energon blue bits
on the belt, the toe tips, headlights, and cab stripes. The fists are
painted gloss black.
Clench has charcoal arms and spoiler, the rest of the non-black parts
are a dark desaturated blue similar to that used on the Nightwatch Optimue Prime deco scheme. He has the ventilator mask sort of face of the Euro-G1 Clench (https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Clench_(G1)), although maybe a little closer
to the Timelines version from 2010. Light chartreuse chest windows, heather violet on the hands, abdomen, belt buckle, thighs, and the patterns on the sides of the arms on the trailer.
Combined looks pretty good, the black collar is really only visible on top, since the sides of both parts cover it. Also, I'm not sure if this is intentional or accidental, but the smokestacks are reversed compared to my Optimus, which means the arms are swapped. I didn't notice at the time, but the Desert Optimus/Hound also has the arms swapped compared to wave 1's Optimus.

Starscream and Slipstream: See Ramjet and Sandstorm below, since I reviewed them first. 7 and 8 on the cardback. The separate nosecone for Slipstream is packaged separately behind the inner card.
On Starscream, the arms and tail pieces are bright blue plastic, the
head and collar are black, the rest is light ghost gray. The face sticker is grinning a bit nervously. Red paont on the shoulders and the intake scoops stuck on top of them (no room on the torso), the pecs, and the pelvis. The shin patches and feet are painted bright blue (good match to the plastic),
the chest cockpit windows are amber, the heel thrusters are dark gunmetal,
and there's red stripes on the wings that don't really look like his usual pattern.
Slipstream's head and arms are dark purple, collar is black, and everything else the same ghost gray as Starscream. I suppose I'd describe
her expression as sarcastically amused. Dark purple paint on the front of
the torso and in stripes on the back of the wings, with metallic blue
cockpit. Dark teal boots.
The combined mode has an amber cockpit despite it being part of Slipstream. It looks kind of like Starscream with canards that have purple stripes, Slipstream just sort of vanishes into the combination. I'm sure
she's not happy about that. Still, it's not as badly disjoint as I'd assumed it would be from the robot mode colors.

Dinobot Snarl and Grimlock: Combines into a chimerical dinosaur, I will hopefully be picking this set up at some point. 3 and 4 on the package.
Snarl's tail is packaged separately behind the inner card. These are the
only molds among the two-packs that I didn't see elsewhere (either wave 1 or
in the 5-pack which I got weeks before the two-packs of this wave).
Grimlock is basically a giant T.rex head facing downward with a robot
head sticking out the stump of the neck. The robot fists have little hook claws under them. The head is black, the collar is bright red, the rest is metalswirl light gray. The expression on the face sticker seems vaguely displeased, although it's hard to tell through the faceplate. The chest
front is painted gold, the pelvis is painted red, the boots are painted
black. There's silver on the dino arm parts of the robot arms, and red on
the dino eyes. I'd prefer it if the dino mouth had black painted in the open part, the lack of color distinction between teeth and maw doesn't look
great. The shoulders are swivels with full range of motion.
Snarl on his own turns into his own back end, and his facial expression looks distinctly displeased not to say disgusted with his role. Like Scorponok-butt, it almost works as a solo altmode, with the tail folded
down. As with Grimlock, the head is black, the collar bright red, everything else the same metalswirled light gray. The chest front and pelvis are
painted red, the kneecaps and toes are gold, the fists are black. There's
more gold on the shoulder/hip circles, the back plates, and the thagomizer.
The shoulder swivels have full range of motion.
Combined, it's basically MechaGodzilla crouching down. It can't be
stood up on the hind legs, as Snarl's robot toes get in the way, but when you have a T.rex head on a body with two rows of metal plates down the back and tail (well, the tail only has a single row, it has to go between the back rows), it's MechaG. The hard part of customizing one would be painting the collar parts silver-gray without having to worry about flaking when the
prongs slide past each other. Anyway, the combined mode is 4.25" (11cm)
long.

Ravage and Shadow Panther (Tigatron and Cheetor redecos): Yes, more
black redecos. I ended up getting these anyway, because I found all four on
a day when I'd gotten a big windfall. 5 and 6 on the card.
Shadow Panther is Cheetor (front half) in all black plastic except for silvery-gra collar. The face sticker has a robot face. Silver paint on the shoulders, on the chest flanking the cat head, the pelvis, and the feet. The cat eyes (both on the chest and in combined mode) are red. The belt buckle
and knees are painted dull gold.
Ravage is the back half, also all black except for the silvery gray collar. The head sticker is basically a beast head as with Beast Wars
Ravage. Again, most of the paint is silver, on the shoulder tops, fists, pelvis, shins, and a little bit of chest around the cat head. Red eyes on
the chest. The tail is rubbery black plastic.
Combined mode is still weirdly chunky, but the waist is all one color rather than a mix as in Cheetor/Tigatron's case.

Optimus Prime and Autobot Hound (Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus
redecos): Optimus is 4 on the cardback, Hound is 3. Optimus gets a weird burning desert camo scheme I haven't seen used before, while Hound is the trailer piece but in his usual green and silver/gray colors.
Optimus keeps the red and black, replaces the light gray with slightly darker silvery gray, and the blue with light brown. Light tan desert camo pattern paint on most of the body, black windows (real and fake), silver
grill (real and fake), silver legs and feet, light brown pelvis, yellow headlights. The face sticker is a more straightforwards faceplate rather
than the weird expression the original Optimus sports. As later noticed on Nemesis Prime, the arms are on opposite sides compared to wave 1's Optimus Prime.
Hound replaces light gray with dark green, most of the blue with light gray, and the head is olive green. Black stays black. The face sticker is smiling and has a rather bigger face than Ultra Magnus does, it's
unsettling. Silver paint on the fronts of the molded legs, the abdomen, and the chest border. The chest window is orange. Yeah, they didn't retool the torso any, so there's still fake semitractor details.
The combined truck doesn't even try to present a unified look, it goes beyond the color differences, why didn't they put camo pattern on Hound as well? Or just make Optimus tan instead of red if they wanted a desert theme, and ditch the camo pattern entirely? It doesn't really work for me.

Ramjet and Decepticon Sandstorm: Ramjet is 1 on the package, Sandstorm
is 2. There's a teeny little inset along the bottom edge of the cardback showing how to attach Sandstorm's nosecone, which is held into the blister behind the inner card.
Sandstorm is unrelated to all the Autobot Sandstorms or the Scorponok redeco Sandstorm, instead this is based on an unproduced G2 design that
finally got used in Generations Selects. Mostly very light tan (sand)
colored plastic with black for the collar and brick red for the head. Tan paint on the chest, shoulders, and pelvis, antique gold metallic paint
cockpit on the chest, dark gunmetal boots. Jet mode has antique gold on the actual cockpit, black on the leading edges of the wings, and brick red bolts
on the wings. Transformation involves folding the nosecone down and laying
the toy on its chest, which is one step more than most solo altmodes. The
head stays stuck out the back, but you can use it as a sort of launcher gimmick. In robot mode, the arms wiggle a bit, but since the swivel goes through the elbow rather than the shoulder, the shoulders bang up against the wings after very little rotation. The face sticker has a sand colored
helmet, dark gray face, and a somewhat disgusted/annoyed expression.
Sandstorm shares a mold with Slipstream, and is designed to look as distinct from Starscream as possible in robot mode.
Ramjet can't quite pull off the conehead look when everyone has cylinder heads. It uses the same plastic colors as Sandstorm, but with black for the head and brick red for the collar. Lots of brick red paint on the wings,
upper arms, anc chest intakes. The jet tail is a separate piece of brick red plastic with light tan paint on the flaps. The null rays, pelvis, kneecaps, and shin vents are painted gloss black, as are the thrusters in jet mode.
The fake cockpit on the chest is antique gold, there is no real cockpit.
Unlike Sandstorm, it can't really fake a solo altmode, as the head just
sticks out, and they didn't bother printing a cockpit on the back of the
head. They did print several little injury "x" patterns on his helmet and
face implying he still rams Autobots with his head despite the lack of nosecone. His smirking expression suggests he doesn't mind taking the
damage. The arms are also hinged close to the elbows, but the wings are a little more set back and the arms have a bit more wiggle room. Shares a mold with Starscream.
The combined jet (well, shipping container with tiny wings and a
cockpit) has a generally unified look of mostly sand and brick red plus some gloss black. The lack of motion range means that the Null Rays are pointed backwards and can't point forwards. A better set than the Optimus one, IMO, but I'm not sure I wan't to put any effort into getting the Slipstream/ Starscream set.

Scorponok: Number 5 on the cardback, this is G1 Scorponok, who combines with BW Scorponok from the Wild Jungle 5-pack, although the packaging doesn't mention this. The robot mode does a pretty good job of evoking the G1 Scorponok color scheme, and the big claw arms can swivel around a complete circle. The body is light gray plastic, the collar and head are black, the arms are violet plastic (not the dark maroon that the other Scorponok uses). Matte violet paint on the torso front, with details in dark gunmetal and orange-ish yellow printing. The shins are painted Constructicon Green. The head sticker has something of an "Oh, crap" expression. Somehow mine got purple paint splattered on the underside of the right foot.
On its own, the "beast mode" is just a big scorpion head with oversized mouthparts that become the robot feet, and porportionally small claws.
There's a fair amount of dark gunmetal paint details on the head, and red
eyes. The head is much more like a Beast Wars scorpion head than G1...not
that G1 Scorponok really put a lot of work into making the beast head look
like something other than the robot head tilted over.
The combined beast works together pretty well. BW Scorponok has black paint and G1 Scorponok dark gunmetal, and the gray shades aren't the same (BW Scorponok's gray is more bluish), but the patterns fit together nonetheless. It's a chunky BW Scorponok with purple claws, basically.
Listings for wave three show a two-pack of Scorponok/Double-Punch, so those might be both Rise of the Beasts deco?


Dave Van Domelen, might grab a spare Dinobots set for MechaGodzilla-ing purposes.
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