I don't post often, which is historically true, but even more true recently as I have worked on an advanced degree. Thankfully, that chapter is coming to a close right as the final marketing push for Haslab Deathsaurus unfolds, with the hand-painted prototype photoshoot being published just last night at the time of writing.
I did write a post for Victory Saber last year - who hopefully will be shipping my way in mere days - and when his packaging was revealed late this summer, the ominous visage of Deathsaurus, along with some rumors of a Legacy leader or commander release persisted over the year, people began to expect to see some kind of better update for the character compared to the 2016 Combiner Wars/Platinum release - a slight remold of CW voyager Sky Lynx, resembling G1 Deathsaurus slightly in beast mode only.
Hasbro's livestream on 10/27/22 revealed the new Haslab campaign, along with grey renders and photos of the block model, giving us an idea of how large Deathsaurus would be, equaling the combined Victory Saber in height, but also including some massive accessories (especially if funded to the 3rd tier).
Things stayed mostly quiet until the colored renders were released on 11/18/22. Though the images were fewer in number, they helped drive excitement, with the minimum 11,000 backers necessary for production reached on 11/28/22. Finally, a second livestream on 11/29/22 (and is accompanying photoshoot, released the next day) revealed the painted prototype in all its shiny glory, indicating that some parts that simply look like grey plastic on the colored render received beautiful silver paint, which hopefully remains true through production.
A few things still remain in play - both the 2nd and 3rd tiers, a weapons pack and display pack, respectively, have not reached the requisite 14,000 and 17,000 backers, and unless an extension is granted, funding ends on 12/12/22, just over two weeks away. I myself was interested in backing from day one, but did not fully decide to do so until about a week before the deadline (yes, this line has been edited in a few days after I began writing).
Enough preamble - let's look at some images! This will somewhat mirror my Victory Saber post, with each set of images focusing on particular modes or components of the set, but I'm also going to include grey renders and colored renders in addition to the painted prototype images.
First, let's look at the included "chestmaster" partners - "Eaglechest" and "Tigerchest." These words are in quotations because, of course, they had to be altered from the original names due to potential problems. Which is fine, but they do seem a bit weird in their new format, probably just to novelty alone.
Eaglechest:
Of the two chestmasters, Eaglechest has a format that evokes Soundwave's cassetticons and I think was even referred to as a cassette in the initial livestream. Similarly to the true cassetticons, he can be stored in Deathsaurus's chest, pushing in the normal chestplate and visually replacing it. This gives less of an "armored" appearance compared to when Tigerchest is used, but that's fine. Clearly, the "cassette" mode is a bit boring, but the eagle mode more than makes up for it, looking terrific for a bird formed from a rectangle. He also has a targetmaster/weapon mode - a gun with two blaster barrels - but it doesn't look amazing, more like a box with teeth. It's also the only actual gun included with the base version of Deathsaurus, making it pretty important that the weapon pack tier is reached by 14,000 backers. I'll put a picture of the gun mode later further down in the post, since it is only over shown being wielded by Deathsaurus.
Tigerchest:
Tigerchest is the flashier of the two chestmasters. His weak point, opposite of Eaglechest, is the beast mode, which doesn't look much like a tiger aside from the orange. He shines - literally - in the armor and bow modes, thanks to the vac metal gold on the wings/horns. Prior to the campaign announcement, I was unaware of the bow targetmaster mode, and its inclusion, along with an arrow to complete the look, is a really neat aspect of the toy and makes up a bit for the lackluster gun mode of Eaglechest, even though it's really not much different from the armor mode. Thankfully, Deathsaurus has sufficient clearance and articulation to allow for some good archery poses.
Ok, on to Deathsaurus himself - sans chestmasters:
This is about as stripped down as Deathsaurus gets; the "Deathtailer" shield is also the dragon tail, so it's not an accessory in the true sense of the word, but more of a vital component. Other than the sheer size and presence that this figure has, what I am most impressed with at this stage is the aforementioned silver paint. Hasbro NEEDS to ensure that this remains part of the final deco and isn't replaced with plain silver plastic; this simply looks too good. I also appreciate how, without either chestmaster applied as armor, the design manages to strike a good balance of looking incomplete, but not in a bad way. The silver unarmored chest has some great detailing, and again, that paint really sells the premium feel (as it does with the shield, which looked a bit unappealing in the renders). Speaking of renders, I'll note that Hasbro didn't release any colored renders of the unarmored Deathsaurus.
Ok, now it's time for armed and armored Deathsaurus. These images only include items from the base/1st tier of production:
This first shot is one of my favorite images from the campaign. I know it's just the grey render, but the lighting from below, the sunset (stormy?) photoshoppery, it all works to sell the scale of this guy as a truly giant robot monstrosity, which is appropriate with the kaiju/dragon altmode and the actually large size of the toy.
This shot is one of the few showing Eaglechest's gun mode. It's pretty much what I described earlier.
Eaglechest gun mode for the painted prototype.
Here's Deathsaurus as an archer. I really like how they attempted to replicate the grey render poses during the photoshoot.
A rare shot of Deathsaurus wearing only Eaglechest as armor. Clearly a screenshot from the recent livestream, as far as I know there are no actual promo shots showing this configuration.
And here's the Deathsaurus that comes to mind for most - armored, with those impressive golden blades protruding from the chestplate; Tigerchest really helps seal Deathsaurus's signature look.
I'll also offer my first critique here - the lack of a standard sidearm/rifle. There was much consternation when the Victory Saber campaign began regarding the lack of the V-lock cannon in the base offering. This turned out to be a non-issue, as all of the tiers were funded, but it was already somewhat mitigated by Saber/Star Saber already including his more typically-sized firearm (along with the V-lock rifles of Victory Leo). Deathsaurus doesn't really have an equivalent of this - his only weapons in the base tier are the (titanic) sword, the weapon modes for the chestmasters, and maybe the Deathtailer shield. A more standard sidearm is notably absent, made weirder by the fact that the original Deathsaurus toy included such a weapon (which is actually the basis for the 2nd tier flail weapon, but more on that later). I would prefer if Deathsaurus included a more typical gun to wield - and that would still be true even if the Living-Metal Destroying Cannon (lol) gets funded.
But what about the beast mode? One of my favorite things about Deathsaurus is that, much as how Victory Saber is like Optimus Prime, but in space, Deathsaurus is the evil, more monstrous (and yet somehow more elegant) take on Grimlock, with a transformation scheme and beast mode that highly resemble those of the Dinobot leader. Obligatory chicken reference? Nah. As with the previous set of images, these also only show items from the base offering.
This mode really sells a sense of weight to the design - he looks heavy, especially bottom-heavy with the leg and tail region looking massive compared to the upper body. The wings look great here too.
I like how much more colorful he looks here compared to the colored render. More realistic color saturation, I guess.
I really like this shot with the mouth open. He actually looks pretty threatening, and I love the 5mm port in the mouth that we'll be able to attach blast effects to. One other cool touch for this mode is the toe articulation - they can splay out for beast mode, something I am not sure I have ever seen with other similar beast modes before (dragons/dinosaurs, etc.). The arms are laughably tiny, however. I would also be interested in seeing this mode without Tigerchest on the back. It wouldn't change the profile much, but still, you'd think that he'd be deployed more so in this mode than when Deathsaurus is in humanoid form.
Ok, finally time to look at the tier unlock items. While maybe not as vital as the V-lock cannon was to Victory Saber/Victory Leo, I have to say that it will be pretty lame if either tier 2 or 3 aren't unlocked. I do appreciated each being pitched as fulfilling a specific function; tier 2 is (thankfully) the weapons pack, including the ridiculous Living-Metal Destroying Cannon and flail, both weapons from the show itself rather than the toy (sort of, as the flail was based on the original toy's gun with its molded flail "bayonet"). A pair of Siege Jetfire-style blast effects sets (so, a total of six pieces) are included as well, for the first time cast in a great-looking translucent purple.
Tier 3 is the display pack, including a base two which two items can be connected: a display arm (with vertical and horizontal orientations for robot and beast modes, respectively) and the throne. The base is quite different from that of Victory Saber's, which is transparent blue with bright red and yellow paint; this new base is silver with technological detailing, meant to invoke the interior deck of Deathsaurus's ship. The display arm and throne both are a dark, blood red (same as the LMD Cannon). The arm isn't anything impressive on its own, but does its job to allow for some fantastic posing. The throne is something to behold, being almost ludicrously large (it will dwarf the throne of Coronation Starscream) to accommodate the voluminous Emperor of Destruction and kind of creepy in appearance. The blood red color has caused some to describe it as sort of gory or fleshy in appearance; I think this is a result of the throne having a sort of stony design, but between the molding and color the stone protrusion look like lumps of organic material (to put it lightly). Either way, it doesn't bother me. The throne is topped by a vividly purple Decepticon sigil, which itself can be topped by Eaglechest in a perching feature - which really looks great.
All I can say is that tier 2 absolutely needs to happen (and likely will; the current back count is over 13,000 at time of writing with over a week to go until the deadline) and it will be a shame if tier 3 doesn't happen. I have already bemoaned the lack of Deathsaurus's smaller sidearm, so the LMD Cannon is a must-have (along with the flail, and the blast effects are nice), and the throne really sells this set as a collector's display piece. Being such a large item, it really adds value to the set as well.
As you can see, it's a pretty nice set of items. As shown below, the LMD Cannon is truly enormous, one of the bigger transformer weapon accessories ever made. Its unique design adds to the desirability, and the blood red color along with the creepy claws make it feel like something out of DOOM or some other horror-oriented first-person shooter. In the show, the cannon has to be wired directly into Deathsaurus to use full power, which adds to the weirdness; it's too bad this couldn't be achieved for the toy. I also like the folded mode, but I don't really know that it can be wielded that way.
The flail looks really good. The livestream this week showed that they reduced the length of the chain, which I'm honestly thankful for. A dynamic chain means static posing, unfortunately, so cutting the length means that you won't having the morning star portion hanging too far down when Deathsaurus has the handle or chain in hand.
Up next are some shots of Deathsaurus wielding these items:
Much like the earlier sunset shot of the robot mode, I love this image. Since the alt mode is often simply described as a generic "kaiju," the attempt to make it appear huge in a landscape really works.
This shot is both amazing and funny. It's really cool that the beast mode can wield the cannon, but the tiny arms operating it are just too much.
This may actually be the only colored render of the robot mode sans throne.
You can see how much the flail chain was shortened between these two shots. I don't mind.
Finally, here are some miscellaneous shots, including a mix of the base tier's items and the items from tiers 2 and or 3:
This shot is a lot of fun. Being able to display the beast mode in flight is a terrific touch, though it makes me wish the display stand arm was transparent like that of the Victory Saber set. I'm also a little surprised that this is the only image they released of the beast mode using the effects parts (if I'd had my druthers, he would also include the new flame piece from Legacy Transmetal II Megatron).
I think this is the single coolest pose they developed for the released images. It's terrifically recreated with the painted prototype below. It's going to be incredible seeing these kinds of dynamic "flying" poses in person with this toy being as big as it is.
The visual composition of this shot is very satisfying, with Deathsaurus framed by his own wings and the Decepticon sigil framed by the stone of the throne and then topped by Eaglechest.
This is the only render shot comparing Deathsaurus and Victory Saber. Though it seems like Victory Saber is a bit taller at the head, Deathsaurus overall looks larger and more menacing due to the wings and chest blades. It doesn't hurt that his sword is titanic, either.
Again, wonderful pose, this time with the painted prototype.
I have to admit that the throne looks a little odd on its own, though not due to the color or detail molding, but instead because of the recess needed to accommodate Deathsaurus's back kibble. Other than that, it's terrific.
Deathsaurus on the throne is a sight to behold. This is going to be much bigger than I think it is!
.jpg)
