Some Arguments Against G.I Joe as a Shared Universe Property

I recently went to see the new Transformers film, Rise of the Beasts. I'm not going to write a review of it, as I'm struggling to find a vein. It's a very adequate movie, that does everything it chooses to do in a mediocre and inoffensive manner. One thing it did do though was tease a shared universe with G.I. Joe, Hasbro's toy soldier brand. That's had a few movies too, but those didn't gain traction like the Transformers have. Say want you want about the Transformers films, but everybody has heard of them. G.I. Joe is also going to be part of the new Transformers comic series by Skybound, echoing the Revolutionaries thing of 2017 and the much more obscure Unit: E of circa 2013. Hasbro seems to want G.I. Joe to be a thing. They seem to want it very badly. More generally, they want to have a shared universe with all their properties, but they seem to see G.I Joe as the key part of those plans. So, the Joes are set to piggyback off the success of Transformers. Speaking purely as a Transformers fan this always bemused me, as Transformers fans are a group famous for not liking the human characters that convention demands be there. I'd imagine fans of Kaiju movies have similar feelings. But, let's put Transformers aside, let's try and separate that as much as possible from the discussion. Instead, let me discuss the reasons why G.I. Joe may not be able to be a worldwide success.

G.I. Joe has actually been around for a very long time, the first prototype being made in 1963. It started out as an attempt to make dolls for boys, by adopting a military theme and using the somewhat euphemistic term “action figures”. Yeah, we don’t have time to unpack that just now, but if you’re getting a vaguely, shall we say, conservative angle? Well, you’re not actually wrong, war toys generally aren’t left wing. G.I. Joe gained significant-if-cyclic success, including international licensees such as Action Man, but it wasn’t until 1982 we got what is largely considered to be the definitive iteration, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. This reworked the concept from doll-sized toy to a 3.75 inch scale in imitation of Kenner’s Star Wars toys, something that lowered costs and allowed for easier implementation of vehicles. They also took the opportunity to add fiction to the toyline, but of a kind that stepped away from specific, real world organisations. Even in the early days, war toys had periods of being unfashionable or politically unpopular. This gave us G.I. Joe as an organisation, rather than simply an individual, versus the terrorist organisation Cobra, and endless toyetic war materiel. That toyline ran for 12 consecutive years, and has had several revivals since.

With the historical place of G.I. Joe established, I feel that there are two massive and unavoidable barriers to the franchise being a global brand, the inescapable real-world connection and the ubiquity of the “toy soldier” concept. Basically, if you don’t know the fiction, G.I. Joe struggles to have a unique selling point versus any of number military-themed toys. And if you do? G.I. Joe looks like a tone-deaf recruitment ad, something of intense interest to stereotypically patriotic Americans and ageing 80’s kids, but of lesser interest to the world at large. Please, don't anybody yell at me about putting politics in your toys, it's baked in. G.I. Joe is patriotic military fiction made by the USA. Such things do not travel well. If country Y makes something that casts it's military in a positive light, the rest of the alphabet are not gonna be predisposed to like such things, and may very well look to their military for such needs. Perhaps the only kind of patriotic military fiction with multinational appeal is one where you are slaughtering Nazis. This is because the primary function of a military is to, well, kill people on the other side of a border. I shouldn't need to give examples, this is a self-evident truth of human history. And Hasbro knows this. It is why G.I. Joe was rebranded into Action Force, and other names for foreign markets. It is also an implicit reason why G.I. Joe got reworked in the 80's with a He-Man style naming scheme. They needed a bunch of baddies to fight whom weren't obviously another nation. So they made a home-grown terrorist organisation called Cobra. It worked, for a time. We largely would not be talking about G.I. Joe if it hadn't found a niche. It had found a way to do military toys without the baggage of real world groups, and real world bloodshed. Then the War on Terror happened. I will not be flippant or otherwise downplay those events, but I will gesture towards the tragedy associated with that time, the scar it left on the American national character, the effect it had on international politics, and its substantial body-count. With that in mind, the idea of a toyline about an American special forces group hunting terrorists seems in poor taste. It also seems a bad thing to try to work into a cinematic universe which is trying to be an international success.

 

 

At this point, a disagreeing reader might ask why it matters what foreigners think? Perhaps you feel that I’m overthinking it, you’re cool with G.I. Joe's overall vibe, and think its fine for your children. Maybe you used the term “snowflake”? You do you. But it matters if you want G.I. Joe to be some kind of big international cultural touchstone, as Hasbro so clearly does. G.I. Joe is unavoidably tied to the reputation of the USA. That is a highly variable factor. It's brand name is no more than a term for a US infantryman, followed by the phrase “A Real American Hero”. You look at its contemporaries and you realise how weird that is. Everything else was a step or two removed from real life, still products of their time, but not bound to it. This is why they've been so open to reboots. GI Joe? Not so much. Its not impossible to do patriotic American stuff that sells elsewhere, see Captain America for example, but he benefited from being a time-displaced Nazi-puncher. Everybody loves a Nazi-puncher. Top Gun maybe? NCIS? But otherwise examples are few. If you take out American militarism, what's left? And what goes in the hole left behind? According to Hasbro & Skybound, the answer to the latter is "be a human response to Transformers", akin to Sector Seven and NEST from the Bay Films, at which point you' d be asking why they'd call it G.I. Joe? And yes, I am aware of G.I Joe: Renegades, not a bad of way doing it, I acknowledge, but that didn’t stick, did it? Not all things can be timeless successes, and G.I .Joe could very well be fated to be a mainly American thing. And there's nowt wrong with that. America is a big market, and people do like tanks and army men. Although, that’s also part of the problem.

 

 

Having dealt with my more inflammatory takes on the G.I. Joe, and resisted the temptation to reference Team America: World Police, and I’m now going to talk about the other barrier, its issues with a Unique Selling Point. It comes down to the fundamentals of a toy based property, the actual toys and their issues with ubiquity. Let us consider the humble ball. Its a classic feature of play and sport. The concept is thousands of years old, and while there are variations and reinventions, were talking about something fundamental to culture at this point. A ball is something you can pretty much get anywhere and is made by any number of companies. Logically, there should be a premier ball brand, like whatever the World Cup uses, but would people the wider population give such a thing any thought at all? Its everywhere, and therefore not acknowledged or considered in any depth. The play pattern of G.I. Joe is in a similar position. While the concept of “action figure + vehicle” is a relatively recent one, toy soldiers have a history going back to at least the 18th century, and even as far back as 2500BC if we consider “tiny representation of a warrior” to be the same thing. Not only has this sort of thing been around for an almost geographical timescale, there’s a great many companies doing pretty much the same thing as G.I. Joe at various prices. What innovations G.I. Joe brought are now the standard. Military-looking action figures are an established thing. They seem to sell without a cartoon. And if you like military-looking stuff, there’s plenty of it that’s based on actual militaries. And if you want military stuff that isn’t based on real stuff, you can go to Star Wars or Warhammer 40K. I mean, there’s some nasty stuff in those two if you look seriously at ‘em, but they aren’t hobbled in the first place by their own names. If you are not already invested in G.I. Joe as a concept, what are the toys bringing to the table? Does G.I. Joe have a unique selling point? I find myself wondering if it does.

None of the above is me suggesting G.I Joe is somehow bad. There’s positives to be found most things, and its entirely possible for talented creatives to make G.I. Joe a success in modern times. But what’s going to get in the way of G.I. Joe, is, frankly, G.I. Joe. And Hasbro asking £105 for this.

 

Transformers: Legacy Evolution Skyquake is Something That Exists

 

 

The 2012 Transformers: Prime Robots in Disguise Skyquake toy

If I was to nitpick the Legacy line, and I wasn't complaining about bone-headed cartoon accuracy, I'd be making criticisms of how the Transformers: Prime characters were executed. To paraphrase/misquote Thew, Prime was a middle ground between the early bay verse films and Transformers: Animated, but lacking the flair of both. It has its followers though, and the cartoon got a Daytime Emmy award, so it clearly found it's place. The toyline however suffered badly from budget cuts at the time, so you'd think a few do-overs wouldn't hurt? I mean, it's only been a decade, so the difference might not be spectacular, but the Studio Series is a thing, and that started out as a line of do-overs. Instead, what characters we've had from that bit of the brand seem to exist only as repaint fodder. 

 

The 1992 Transformers Skyquake Toy

I will admit to being modestly surprised when I looked Skyquake up, or at least the Prime iteration thereof. I'd had this guy pegged as a melange of influences and a pretool to something more famous, and that's actually not wrong. Skyquake has a twin brother, Dreadwing, whom has just been leaked at time of writing, while this toy shares a lot visually with the G1 Skyquake. The Prime iteration though, against expectations, had managed to have a lasting effect on his cartoon, even/especially posthumously. G1 Skyquake meanwhile is super obscure, and is best known for being an oddly coloured chap whom was shot in the back several pages into the (highly recommended) comic series The Last Stand of The Wreckers. So… why mix both together? Its clear which is the interesting one. It is akin to creating a James Bond tier list, and putting George Lazenby on the same level as Timothy Dalton. For the purposes of this metaphor, Dreadwing would be Roger Moore. As such, it's a little weird for them to take such obviously divergent characters and blend them together like this. The closest thing I can think of is when they put an IDW style head on something, or tried to up a bayformer in G1 colours. And given Shadow Striker, it seems be a new trend.

 

The merger of the two Skyquakes is most evident and most schizophrenic in jet mode. The front end is the Prime version, with it's distinctive nosecose and cockpit design. It's backend and wings are however the G1 iteration. The overall effect therefore becomes like something out of your average spaceship shooter video game from three decades ago, like R-Type, Thunderforce, Raiden and so on. It's got a very chunky, stubby winged look, but there is a definite appeal to that. The green with metallic highlights is a great colour scheme. What elevates it however a number of nice features often committed from modern toys. Yes, this has both the luxury of an opening cockpit AND foldaway landing gear. It makes the plane just that bit more compelling. The underside area isn't too bad either, it's got it's share of seams, don't get me wrong, but compared to your average modern seeker? Its trying harder. Much harder. On the downside however, placing the minigun in its dedicated spot on the underside blocks the flight stand port, and interferes with the landing gear. Boo. Play features and/or Evo Fusion? Well, in what's almost certainly functionality for a later release, you can attach Needlenose on top. It's nothing special. If anything, it highlights the difference between an imperfect but actually pretty clean jet, and one that's naff from all but one angle. Pretty much everything Needlenose got wrong, Skyquake gets right.

 

Putting things into robot mode is a non-trivial process. That's both a positive and a negative. A lot of modern leaders tend to be a bit simple, often voyagers with extra accessories, or have a toy with simple conversion as source material. Skyquake really isn't like that, he's possibly something closer to a Studio Series leader, as there's a lot of moving parts. This relative complexity is gonna be a plus for people whom like bigger toys to have more involved engineering, although a word of caution is advised. The instructions refer to a different version of the toy, which has confused the hell out of everyone. In order to get the backpack flush and tabbed in, you have to collapse the nosecone in a specific order, and feed the cockpit glass through the backpack. See this video for a demonstration. This is very much an "exactly this order" problem, with the wrong order being more intuitive. Fucksake Hasbro. In other news, I did notice with my example that the ratcheting joints alternated between "OK" and "tight to the point of concern". On the plus side however there is some welcome touches like panels to conceal gaps on the limbs, which add to the generally premium vibe the toy has. As for the resulting robot mode? Well... 

 

Oh, yeah. That's the stuff.

Skyquake's robot continues the melange of visual elements and pleasing bulk. For the most part, he leans towards the pseudo-G1 style that Bulkhead and such had, by going somewhat more boxy than the Prime iteration and having a nose. Elements inherited from the G1 version are mostly focused on the torso and backpack areas, and look like bits easily retooled for other characters. Which, TBH, was a disappointment I had with Dreadwing when he was leaked, as none of those bits had been changed. I’d been half-expecting them to mix things up a bit, before going full G1 for an exclusive of some sort. You know, Skyquake being the pretool to a more interesting release? Still, they are twins. Its not a problem as such, but there’s definitely competing elements at play here, with the overall form and play pattern being that of the Prime iteration, only for the centre mass to be very G1. That's also where some visual flaws creep in, the torso having a certain hollowness resulting from the transformation, and a big translucent chest plate doesn't help with that. This is however balanced out by the aforementioned limb panels and a general impression of mass. Skyquake is a big dude, not merely chonky like the jet mode, but thick of proportion like a bodybuilder. One imagines he has a rivalry with Jhiaxus at the Decepticon Gym, and is comfortably in the lead. The articulation supports that look quite well, he's got notably good shoulder and knee joints, if being a touch limited in the ankle. He's in high heels and doesn't have much of an ankle rocker, so there's certain poses he struggles with. What he does excel at is two-handed chaingun pose with a side order of swordplay. Few Transformers toys even attempt a two-handed pose, but they made the effort here, and if that gets boring, he's definitely got the joints to swing a sword. If, for some reason, the sword is only moulded to fit the right hand...

My point? Only that Legacy Evolution Skyquake is something that exists. And that his instructions are hot garbage. Its looking like he’s heading towards the discount rack, but I don’t think you’ll regret grabbing him there.

Plamo: Mule Transport (Mantic Games)

OK, here's the deal. Sometimes you pick up something not because you have something specific in mind, but because you know you'll find a use for it. The logic here was that it was a tenner, would lend itself well to any number of projects, but it fell by the wayside. Then Xenos Rampant happened, and my experiments in human infantry. So this instead became a straight build, or in XR terms a Softskin Transport.

As model kits go the Mule seems pretty decent, although it lacked instructions. That didn't slow me down, but it could have been a real nuisance. The axles and shock absorbers are all separate parts, which is great for kitbashing, but not ideal for structural stability. The gun shield was kind of an annoying piece too, so I only did half of it. On the plus side, this was the "plague" version, which meant it came with some nasty looking spikes and damaged parts. I'll use those in a future project. The tailgate also opens, if you don’t glue it.

 

I painted this in much the same way as my Iron Brothers, spraying in Color Forge Desert Sand, but the wheels were sprayed in Trench Brown to be added later. I sponged the Death Guard green on top on that with a, um, sponge, to create a camouflage effect. I then applied assorted weathering techniques and liberal applications of my homemade mud paint, the latter helping with the camouflage effect. It all worked out pretty well although I probably wouldn’t do the windows in black again.

 

I’ve not got a huge amount to say about this one, I admit. This was a quick project I was doing inbetween stuff I was struggling with, Its a perfectly adequate kit, and I painted it in a way that was more efficient than especially interesting. Maybe this is why Astra Militarium players are treadheads? Its not just that the tanks are cool, its far less of a ball-ache to paint tanks than infantry? That said, if you’re doing humies or orks, the Mule seems well-worth getting when its on sale.

Transformers: Titans Return Seaspray is Something That Exists

Its a given that in an ensemble action/toy franchise, one big enough to have it's cast in the dozens, they will be a dude whose job it is to have the seaborne adventures. It makes sense, there's entire genres of fiction exploring such things. The thing is that this often a gimmick, and an isolating one. If you have a dude whose whole thing is that he's tishman or summat, logically he's not gonna be great on land, and if people join him in the sea, you run the risk making somebody else look naff. TV Tropes calls this phenomenon "This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman", and it's Seaspray's fate. Appearing in season 2 of the Sunbow show, Seaspray was one of the "suddenly there" characters, one with a distinctive manner of speech, and a couple of highlight episodes, but not much else. But I had that toy as a kid, and do so today actually, so here we are. I do occasionally have my irrational favourites.

This isn't the first time I've written about Seaspray, actually. I did so a worryingly long time ago as part of my "Radical Regenerations" format. That toy was made during a period when Hasbro was much more willing to totally rework a character, something much less common these days, barring the recent Wheeljack hoo-hah. That toy made Seaspray a much bigger chap, not unreasonably as hovercraft are actually pretty massive, but still kept his fundamental dorkiness by giving him flippers & scuba gear. Today's subject is somewhat closer to the source material, but isn't anywhere near as slavish as the modern crop of deluxe minibots, which Seaspray will no doubt join eventually. Titans Return brought plenty of G1 characters back, but modernised, remixed, and made to fit the line-wide gimmicks. This Seaspray is therefore a logical progression, drawing from both animation and toy sources, while doing stuff he explicitly didn’t do before in the name of play value. 

 

This is most evident in his vehicle mode, which is obviously more detailed than the original toy, but also more angular. Even allowing for the rarity of hovercraft, it's obvious who it is, but they've added a touch of white up front, and tampographs like the old toy stickers. The use of yellow meanwhile is slightly more prominent, with black merely being paint, rather than a shadowy hollow. What seems to have been a passenger area on the original has been reimagined as a missile launcher, and is is the first of several removable oddities. The launcher is secured by three small tabs and like TR Brawn, the larger one, needs to be removed for transformation but also has detail underneath so it's no biggy if it goes missing. The blue propellers and rear underside are also removable for no obvious reason. While the above are basically harmless curiosities, what is less forgivable is the exposed head. While I suppose you could argue that this is a nod to the original toy, the actual reason is that is Seaspray dedicates a lot of internal space to a Titan master compartment, and I am 1000% sure that they could have had the head fold away without that. The hands are also hanging out in the back there, and there's no castor wheels, which are downers but not actually deal breakers by the standards of the time. Overall its quite a charming little vehicle mode, especially if you pair him with a solo titanmaster. This is an area where the TakaraTomy version possibly has the edge, as ole TT didn't do solo Titanmasters, and remixed their parts into other releases. Thus the Japan release of Seaspray comes with some deco differences and a little headmaster-type dude called Lione, whom invites a lengthy tangent I've cut from this article.(Short version: TakaraTomy got weird and broke the play pattern, thus undermining a love letter to their past work.) If you can get that version, it's probably quite nice, but it's not the clear winner that some Japanese versions are.

In robot mode, positive trends continue, although relatively few new visual elements are revealed. The main difference is the reveal of his yellow legs, as the transformation has similar-if-remixed beats to the original toy. Overall appearance and proportions suggest a dorky awkwardness, with each foot almost being as big as his torso, which, TBH, was the brief. The missile rack gives you some options here, leave it on for Sunbow chubbiness, or take it off the for 80's toy look. This leads us to, in possibly the least likely sentence I will ever write, Sea Spray's interesting forearms. The missile rack doesn't use a 5mm peg, instead it uses one of the tabs to connect near the elbow. 5mm fist-holes remain for compatibility, but it's an honestly clever idea. Both forearms also feature a coded reference to Alana, his one time love interest. It seems he got her name tattooed on him, as befits a sailor, although spelt wrong. Possibly he was drunk, again befitting a Sailor, and many tattoos start that way. So, it's a toy with character, then, where's the downside? Well, articulation is adequate rather than great. Those feet don't really have much in the ankle. 

 

 

My point? Only that Titans Return Seaspray is something that exists. He's probably not the best in his line, but is he fun. 

 

Warhammer 40K: First Impressions of 10th Edition, by an Ork Player

OK, let’s do this. A reactions article to the big pile of rules that have been dropped. I’m kinda obligated to do so as an Ork fan. But, first, I must make a disclaimer. I played precisely zero games of 9th edition, or any games of 10th, so there's gonna be better takes than mine out there. That said, 10th edition is a hard reset of the game, and at time of writing this introduction has been playable for mere hours. We've had several weeks of the rules being drip-fed to us, only to become playable at the very end with release of the points costs. This is something conducive to hype, and sudden disappointment, rather than considered opinions. It's gonna be a few weeks before things have settled down and people have got a handle on the game. In such an environment however, I'm sure my observations are as good as any.

The Big Picture

10th edition is a root and branch reform of the game, and as such there are too many changes for me to usefully address here. However, the biggest change is the one they saved for last, the points costs found in the Munitorium Field Manual pdf. Continuing a design trend we've been seeing for a while, units are costed and composed based on the contents of their model kit. The number of models is fixed, and what equipment options they have have been subsumed into a single points cost. Returning players should immediately recognise this as an evolution of the Power Level system of earlier editions, something that gives me cause for concern. The reason why a lot of people didn't like Power Levels was because it lacked granularity and seemed to be easily abused. People liked fine-tuning thief army lists, and Power Levels were simply not suited, nor intended for, competitive play. The new way of doing things is very much the same thing by another name, so I really hope the GW did some serious play-testing. Assuming this works as intended, army building should be a dramatically faster experience, especially for those armies with a lot of moving parts like T’au, but decidedly less important to actual play. Whatever happens, I expect a transitional period where everyone with an existing army adjusts their squad sizes to be a multiple of 10 or 5, with units like Battlewagon suddenly having new guns glued to them, and people homing in on the one optimal load-out for each unit. Then again, Age of Sigmar has been working like this for years, maybe it's fine. Another significant change, and one I think more welcome, is a general attempt to remove redundancy. Each seems to have been granted a unique party trick to help it stand out and be valid for reasons other than cost. Some armies do this better than others, Space Marines remain bloated in the extreme for example, but it's something I like. The net effect is that the game seems more characterful, the general simplicity of things allowing for two sentence concepts to make big differences. I will say from a general presentation and readability angle, GW has done a fine job.

The Boyz

So, how might Orks work in this edition? Well, let's consider the humble Ork Boy. The bread and butter of the faction. At first, Boyz seem to be rather a lot like they were in 8th & 9th, just the terminology has changed, and things maybe look better? Shootas get Rapid Fire 1 rather than Dakka 2/3 for example, Rokkit Launchas aren't Heavy but still get Blast, and the lads get a 5+ save now. What they don't get is a native bonus to charge rolls any more, that sort of thing now the domain of Stratagems, unit synergy, and the Waaaaggghh. This not to suggest that Orks are any less choppy, the Waaaaggghh effects everything, and often triggers unit specific abilities, while the "army composition" bonus is exploding 6s in melee. You will likely be recognising that as the Goff trait, but the orky clans are not currently present in the rules. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. Boyz notably max out at 20, but their special thing is that they can be joined by two leader models, one of which has to be a Warboss which are being pushed a bit in the Ork Index. Warbosses are pretty hardcore, so that's not really a problem, and it seems to forestall some potential game-breakers. A few interesting effects come out of this, like the Big Mek adding a re-roll-1s shooting bonus, and the Painboy inflicting mortal wounds, which again, is quite characterful. The potential for a 22 model unit is also reflected in the Battlewagons troop capacity, though the Trukk seems fated to have a spare seat. What discourse I’ve seen tends towards mechanisation as the way to go with Orks, as Trukks are notably cheap, although I wonder if people are sleeping on the assorted leaders and their effects. While squad sizes of 30 are a thing of the past, you can certainly pull off a Green Tide.

Meganobz, the Anti-Tank Role & Combi-Weapons

These guys are interesting from a game mechanics perspective. These are a rare unit with multiple squad sizes do to a quirk of the kit, an example of how the new style combi-weapons work, and an example of how vehicles seem to work now. Starting with the vehicle angle, most now have a Toughness of 10, making them much harder for the tried & true Power Klaw to take out. Killsaws do better, but you don’t get many attacks out of them. Orks having difficulties with the anti-tank role isn’t exactly new, but the general theme here is S8/9 and D2/3, so a rethink is probably required. Now, you’d think the clever thing to do here would be to look at Tankbustas, but GW’s “only what’s in the box” policy kinda screws them over, as you can only have 5 of them in a mob, and only 3 have Rokkit Launchas. Yay. Presumably, this is where Beast Snaggers come in, whom come at that problem from a different direction, getting rerolls and fixed wound rolls on stuff. So, going back to the Meganobz, anti-tank is something they can do, but their weapons seem to a favour an anti-infantry role. That’s where the Kombi-Weapons come in, having the Anti-Infantry and Devastating Wounds rules. This makes them quite capable of killing dudes, but also means my favoured tactic of rocking up and setting fire to things isn’t possible any more. Given that exactly the same thing has happened to Space Marines, I wonder if this might be GW applying some common sense. Previously, these weapons were essentially a rifle plus a much better gun, say a Meltagun for humies. Being able to spam weapons like that is exactly the sort of scenario I’m worried about with respects to points costs above, so its good GW closed it off. Also of note: a Big Mek in Mega-Armour can resurrect the dead of its squad. Unexpectedly.

Giant Stompy Robots

Well, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t touch on this. As often happens, there’s been a bit of shift in relationship between Killa Kans and Deff Dreads, with the kans being more immediately appealing. You get three Kans to one Dread, offering more dakka and arguably better melee for the same price. Kans also win on personality, now having a rule that makes their attacks ignore cover, if occasionally shooting that one bastard whom picked on them, aka the nearest ork unit. They also get an improved version of the Big Shoota, thus making that option useful. Where the Kans suffer is in durability and speed. While both get a native invulnerable save, Deff Dreads are tougher and move 10 inches, which is Battlewagon pace, and cause Battleshock as bonus. ‘Orkanauts meanwhile continue being big tough bastards, and have gained a transport capacity of 12, thus meaning they can actually carry units of note. The Morkanaut oddly lacks a Kustom Forcefield though…

Oddments and things That Aren’t a Parargraph by Themselves

Something that affects a lot of units of the Speed Freek variety is the change of Twin-Linked from being two guns nailed together into a reroll-to-wound. This means slightly less dakka overall, the weapons generally have been rebalanced, so.. swings and roundabouts? Do you like Grots? Well, its time to go looking in your bitz box, because Runtherds are mandatory now. They can generate CP though. Do you want to really annoy a shooty army? Well, Kommandos can’t be targeted by Overwatch.

MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Wrapping things up

I’m fairly sure that within weeks, somebody will have found a way to break the game. Its just how statistics and the average wargamer tend to work. I’m also sure that the rules bloat problem will come to haunt this game as much as it did 8^th and 9^th edition. At this precise moment however, its hard to complain when everything is in a free PDF, and GW seems to be actively maintaining its games these days. <Cautious thumbs up>

Kitbash: Deathskull Ork Trukk (Warhammer 40k)

 

As I write this, Warhammer 40k 10th edition is an unspecified, but short, time in the future. The free rules are up, the preorders go this weekend, with the army lists being drip-fed into the community. And people I know want to play it. And so I have unavoidably been drawn back in. I have Orks to paint. Or in this case, repaint. My army spans many editions, and many relapses, so I have stuff I can modernise. My official Trukks where one such example. These were done in red as hadn't chosen a clan, it wasn't a rules thing at the time, and we're a touch beaten up. So into the dettol they went. Today, I briefly talk about the first to be resurrected.

 

My initial plan was to simply do them in blue, and replace the rokkits with a big shoota. I actually made these so long ago, that you could have rokkits launchas on them, thus giving the Trukks a borderline useful thing to do. I.e. harass tanks, if they managed to deliver their Boyz somewhere. The default, and recently only, gun for a Trukk is the Big Shoota, a cucumber sandwich of a thing. Typically, its hard to get those in in sufficient density to make a difference, so bar something unexpected, I fully expect this weapon to be “present” rather than “desired”.

 

Anyways, enough talk of games mechanics in a kitbashing article. Breaking down the first trukk however required some mental adjustment. I’d forgotten that GW had gotten creative with the design of the vehicle and its crew. As these kits go, there’s a pleasing amount of gubbins like a distinct engine block and drive shaft, but I can’t think for the life of me why they opted against a steering wheel and whatever is going on with the gunner’s pose. This is also something I dislike about the “orktober buggies” too; the crew are too distinctive for something you want multiples of. However, it seems past me was a light touch with the glue, and had painted in sub assemblies, so breaking this down was simple. As a result, I decided to replace the gunner with a Grot Turret I'd built for another project, adding new panels in the manner of my many-many scratchbuilds. I also painted it in pretty much the same way as my orky Gaslands cars, the techniques scaling up very well. Remembering how to paint Ork skin & teeth was more of an issue, especially with paint residue being a thing.

 

End result? Pretty good. I’m happy with it.

 

Transformers: Legacy Robots in Disguise 2000 Universe Scourge is Something That Exists

 That's a bloody long title. Moving on...

 

 The 2002 Robots in Disguise Scourge toy

Exactly how uneven can a Transformers toyline be, and yet still be an all-round success? The answer is "Exactly as uneven as the circa 2001 Robots in Disguise line.". This started out as a purely Japanese endeavour, with a similar modus operandi to their Beast Wars spin-offs Neo and Second. As such, Car Robots, it wasn’t Robots in Disguise yet, featured a very small number of newly designed toys versus a huge number of repaints, plus a few previously unreleased toys from Generation 2. However two things ran in its favour. The first was it doing realistic vehicle modes with benefit of Beast Wars engineering, after a prolonged absence of such things. This, combined with the mystique attached to Japanese exclusives, was like chocolate covered crack cocaine to collectors. The second thing was that Beast Machines had failed, so Hasbro imported the line as a stop-gap, adding a few more recycled moulds to the ranks. It was a big success, but parents complained that those new moulds that were so prized by collectors were too hard to transform by actual children, and that's how Armada happened. What does this mean for Scourge? Well, Scourge is emblematic of RIDs repaint habit, also the Nemesis Prime concept, although he's technically a separate thing, and indeed black repaints in general. He started out as a repaint of the G2 era Laser Rod Optimus Prime. It was very much in that G2 sweet-spot where things had meaningful articulation and light-piping, and is still highly regarded today. Scourge, or Black Convoy as he was originally called in Japan, was for most intents and purposes an evil counterpart for that show’s Optimus with no ties to Unicron, and the obvious inspiration for that new chap in the new movie whom does. Unlike many such characters though, his creation was more accidental than anything else. Sure, Megatron was trying to reprogram an Autobot Protoform into a useful slave through use of his own spark energy, but Optimus Prime and a certain recurring comedic character were scanned accidentally too when seeking an altmode. Which I suppose means that Scourge has a mummy and two daddies, whatever you’d count the truck as, plus any parentage he had before. It takes a village to raise a child? Anyways, the concept of an evil Optimus Prime whom was a legitimate threat with a good toy got a lot of traction, prompting Hasbro to make a totally new Spychanger mould of him. I’ve put it in one of the pictures. Its adorable. Can I tell you what's so hysterical about that toy though? It was is only the second unique and purpose-made baddy mould in the entirety of the RID line. The line was that uneven.

Jump forward, what? 20 odd years? Fuck me, and we have today's toy. While there’s been several other toys in the interim, this is the first the really make to the mass market, if as part of the Velocitron Speedia 500 Collection. The base mould is, of course, the Legacy leader class Laser Optimus Prime, which prompted me to chant the words “paint it black” from the first moment I saw it. I never bothered with the original version because A) its not hard to get an Optimus toy, and B) that mould shares more than a few parts with the Earthrise and Siege versions. An expensive toy that recycles bits and is an obvious forerunner to a much more compelling release? Hard Pass. So I waited until Scourge was announced. And then waited for the price to be right. Eventually, I got this for 25 quid on sale, which may be affecting my response to it.

The truck mode is rather self-explanatory. Honestly, I can struggle a bit when it comes to talking about mundane vehicle modes. As long as it rolls and has no obnoxious bleed through from the other modes I'm happy. This toy pulls that off pretty well, and I'd be lying if I said the colours weren't making the best of it. Black tends to conceal many a sin, and there aren't that many here. The back-end and hitch area is where things go a little bit off the boil, but accessories tend to hide the gaps. What's possibly most interesting is that is that you've got storage for the melee weapons on both the cab and in the trailer, a welcome bit of flexibility. Speaking of the trailer, it and it's resulting base mode are perhaps a touch more engaging on their own merits, at least in comparison to the Earthrise version. It's also less involved than the toy that inspired it, which puts it in an awkward kinda place where you can see that they tried but didn't quite nail it. Visually there's no shortage of detail, a fair few ports, and it's hitch becomes a stand for the thing. Weapon integration is pretty good, with a double-barrelled gun worked in as a top hatch, and you can stick both of the melee weapons in there via dedicated slots. The base mode is OK, more adequate than anything else. It folds open with more complexity than the Earthrise version, and more visual interest. It is however mainly unpainted plastic, and is screaming out for an additional play feature. This either needs more guns, or some little chaps to stand there. It's not bad by the standards of modern leaders, and certainly not unwelcome here, but one does wonder if the budget was allocated to the wrong things.

On that subject: engineering. Transformation of the cab to robot mode and back is an oddly complex business, and the reason why it's dishonest to call this simply a retool. The legs are definitely familiar, and don't do that much in the process, but the torso turns itself inside out. It's mad. They clearly weren't trying to modernise the original here, not that there's anything wrong that. It's why both the truck and robot modes turned out so well, but it is noteworthy. At some point, you have to wonder if the presumable savings from doing this are being cancelled out by the changes you end up making to make it all work. Either that, or somebody designed the legs last, and ended up kitbashing an Earthrise Prime.

 

 

Now, let's be honest here, this robot is style personified. It's the contrast of black and magenta, with touches of teal and grey. The presence is immense, with the head sculpt and shoulder pylons being highlights. This is a guy whom could go straight from a night club to a funeral then a society wedding without changing clothes. Admittedly, perhaps to burn down that night club, while the funeral was something he had a hand in, and the wedding had Rupert Murdock on the guest list, but yes. Stylish evil is the order of the day, and just a quick car wash is all he needs, just to remove the blood stains. It's something of a prestige piece, as befits an exclusive repaint, with a lot of the basics done right, with a few nice touches. The thing is, depending on how ya count, there's 17(!) other toys sharing parts with this, before we get into different pricepoints and the movie lines, so a certain degree of nitpicking becomes unavoidable. Colour choices are a little off; Scourge traditionally has more grey in the mix and chest details that suggest windows. This new mould takes it a step further with faux kibble windows which store a removable matrix, so he's closer to the Nemesis Prime concept here. Proportionally, he's a touch long in the leg, something inherent to the mould, but as the thighs are entirely grey it's more noticeable. Posability is Legacy standard, so better than the G2 toy, although the upper arms end up a touch limited due the transformation and pylons, looking skinny with an offset swivel. The accessories have that same "OK, they tried" feel as the trailer meanwhile. The sword and decorative missile silos are fine, possibly in need of paint, but entirely within the Legacy vibe, and if you're basing a toy off Laser Prime, the usage of translucent plastic makes sense in the absence of electronics. The axe however is just unfortunate. I know what they were aiming for, and the combination with the sword is inoffensive, but the colour choices make it look like a lollipop. He probably needed a better firearm too. These are all nitpicks, mind you. It is a good robot mode.

 

My point? Only that Legacy Scourge is something that exists. And that choosing between optimus toys can get a bit like choosing between flavours of potato crisps. There are simply too many made too often. Scourge definitely has his own flavour though, and is based on a pretty good mould. Not an excellent mould, and an occasionally an odd one, but definitely one I don't regret buying.