Occasionally, you find articles for toys on the wiki that are complete, functional, but little more than a stub. Given how old and self-referential Transformers is as a brand, and how aggressively marketed , this can be a little strange when it happens. Most articles are a veritable web of links, then again somebody has to be the cul-de-sac, I suppose. Stormshot is very much that, with no fictional appearances, no obvious providence, and no retools. He just turned up, and went, and that was it. That's just weird for a release like this.
OK, so context. Stormshot was part of the circa-2015 Robots in Disguise line, a direct sequel to Transformers: Prime. This was largely ignored by collectors for two reasons: 1) it starred Bumblebee, and 2) it was aimed at actual kids. The toys were simpler and gimmicky for the most part, and it didn't make a great first impression, establishing a pattern that Cyberverse would follow. RID2015 did however have a lot of good ideas of its own, mainly the beastly take on Decepticons, and it certainly wasn't relying on nostalgia to pay the bills. It also had "ideas above its station" with the Warrior size class, a cut-down and cheaper version of the Deluxe found in Generations. You got what you paid for, with examples often being hollow and/or rough around the edges, but a good warrior could certainly earn a spot on your shelf. Stormshot appeared in wave 8 of 12, and the designers had found their rhythm by then. With that in mind, I'm quite happy to declare him to be a good toy, if perhaps for a given value of good. There's a few areas obviously in need of paint, a simplistic transformation, and a big cavity in the back of his head. He is however very colourful, has landing gear, comes with two accessories, and makes good use of them.
There's a few interesting threads to pull on. The first is that this toy was originally going to be named "Skyfire", aka Jetfire's alias, which occasionally gets applied to jeftormers. This would explain much, mainly the being an autobot jet with white plastic, but not everything. While Skyfire is fairly sensible in his paintjob, Stormshot has the colours of the U.S flag, but his altmode is supposedly, and loosely, based off the Russian Mikoyan MiG-29. This is a curious combination. Its like someone customised a jet to appear in half-time shows, made it as USA-USA-USA as possible, but brought the actual plane from Viktor Bout. One also wonders if, given the stern face, vaguely villainous hands and stereotypical seeker altmode, if this guy was intended to be a Decepticon at some point? Something that happens a lot these days is the "retool/repaint first" phenomenon, where a toy obviously designed to be a specific character gets released as another first to maximise sales, you might have noticed. This happened a few times during Combiner Wars,Titans Return, and more recently with a lot of Siege/Earthrise. RID2015 did the same thing with Bludgeon, releasing the toy first as the Autobot Blastwave, whom notably made it into the show where Bludgeon didn't. Was this the plan here? Was Stormshot intended to a be legacy character? Or a new character with an old-but-trademarked name? This toyline did have a few of both, and the Aligned Continuity did already have a Jetfire in the video games...
In terms of engineering as opposed to wild speculation, the mould is quite reminiscent of the Combiner Wars Aerialbots, transforming the same way, and even having a connector for a figure stand. This may be a coincidence, as the Aerialbots had simple transformations due to the combiner gimmick, but its too similar to dismiss as one. More interesting however are his two guns. It wasn't unheard of for a toy at this price point to have two weapons, but it was on the uncommon side, with guns in general being a bit downplayed. Stormshot however has a gun, a quite conventional one. And he's also got a pistol too. You generally don't get that combination at all in Transformers, never mind RID2015. These can plug together, seemingly for storage under the jet mode cockpit, but you've also got ports under the wings and on top. It's weird to find a toy so obviously about gunplay in a toy line that explicitly isn't set during a war...
My point? Well, I'd like to know just why Stormshot exists. RID2015 did have its share of toy-only characters, but given the relative prestige of the warrior class its strange that he made the cut. That said, Twinferno/Doublecross also got a warrior and a legend around the same time, plus a full Generations deluxe, so who bloody knows after that.
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