Hunting Party

So, over the past week, we've had the entire 2nd wave of Beast Hunters deluxes revealed, either purposely or not, online. They're pretty cool!

First, Ripclaw - pretty different from the Kre-O version, this Predacon has the same body as the other female Predacon, Ser-Ket, from the Rage of the Dinobots comic. Different colors, though. Pretty traditional European dragon mode, with a tri-clawed gun-tail. Bot mode is...interesting, with weird shoulders and head, but the tail claw become a hand-held weapon. Pretty cool, maybe more so than Laserback.

Second - Bulkhead! Yep, a deluxe Bulkhead. Which, honestly, is something some of us wondered would happen back when the only TFPrime toys we knew up were deluxes (FE wave 1, basically). This is a totally new mold, obviously, and is based on the already-known remold/repaint of the Commander class toy, which has the typical BH spikes and a Roadbuster color scheme. This toy keeps the Roadbuster look, but the BH armor "modifications" are not the same, and the robot mode looks pretty different as a result. New transformation means that the hood reveals a robot-armor chest, which a Animated Bulkhead's thin windshield lines (neat!). He also has a pretty cool "dragon grinder" buzzsaw weapon to mount on his forearm(s). Unfortunately, it looks like his has "Scourge-bows" (although I suppose it's appropriate that someone in a dragon-themed line would!). Pretty tempting, but I may just go for the Commander remold.

Third - Smokescreen - finally, confirmation of a new-mold deluxe. There was fear that we would get a Knock Out remold, like Takara made, which not many were interested in. Instead, we get an interesting toy - the base figure is a typical, show-model Smokescreen, but has add-on BH-style armor/weapon. Smart. However, his robot chest is also very blatantly not the car's actual hood, so I'm not happy about that. Honestly, I've got this philosophy for TF engineering that states, basically, that a toy for any given character should have a more accurate/less cheaty transformation scheme than any toy for that character that's in a lower size class. Translation? The upcoming legion class Smokescreen has a real hood-chest; this one should too.

Fourth - Starscream! TFP Screamer gets his second deluxe mold (after the awesome FE). Looks a bit weird, but it's a deluxe Starscream, so I'm pretty certain that I'll cave. Plus, it's not really a bad weird anyway. I'm looking forward to larger, clearer pics.