DSC_0932
Ah Mondays.. beginning of another work week, start of another pay cycle, and of course, another day to open and review neat stuff. Today, for your consideration, I have for your Nightbird from the Transformers War for Cybertron: Siege line. The figure is released under the Generations Select subline, which features various characters and concepts that didn't quite make it to the main line for.. reasons.. that's all I got. Not entirely certain about the rest of the world, but here in Canada, these figures were sold as EB Games exclusives, which is naturally, where I got mine at the standard price point of $29.99 CAD plus taxes.
Nightbird is one of those blink and you miss it characters from G1, specifically from the Japanese side of things, and effectively resembled an evil Arcee with a different head. The last figure I'm aware of this for this character was one of those, again, blink and you miss it solicitations for the Japanese Legends line, where Nightbird was, as expected, a repainted Legends Arcee with a new head, and a pair of Sai to boot. I was lucky enough to find Slipstream, Nightbird, and Blackarachnia loose and for a decent price, before things went completely crazy in Spring 2018. If you're familiar with the Legends Arcee figure, then you know exactly what to expect here.
Anyway, I guess there was enough people who missed this Legends release (or Nightbird is super popular) that caused Hasbro/Takara Tomy to say "You know what, we're going to make another one". This time, the figure wasn't a reuse of another Arcee. Nope, this time, Nightbird is a reuse of Siege Chromia, which in turn was a heavy retool of the admittedly gangly Moonracer toy from the Power of the Primes line.
Now, this figure was already the subject of my hate even before it was officially released, and I can understand why. After all, this was supposed to be a way for collectors who missed the Legends to add a Nightbird to their collection, and it succeeds at that.. but it's just super duper lazy. Unlike Ratchet, this reuse of the Chromia mould to make Nightbird is very much a one to one copy, with the exception of the head, which is brand new. The weapon itself is even a copy of what Chromia uses, which is unfortunate, because even Greenlight came with a Battlemaster to differentiate her a bit from the rest of the Moonracer clones. The repaint itself is also somewhat underwhelming - while Legends Nightbird featured a nice use of silver as its main colour, the Siege version uses a rather dull grey... or in the case of its vehicle mode, predominately black. Personally, I bought this figure knowing of these shortcomings. I'm just a big sucker for Fembots.. in case it wasn't apparent from my other buying habits. I also happened to like the Chromia toy itself, flaws and all.
So we've established that if you're expecting Legends Nightbird, you're gonna be pissed, and I've still got your attention - good, now lets talk about the figure itself.
Nightbird comes with the figure and her technically four piece weapon - the scope comes off too. I found that the scope piece was a bit on a crappier side of tolerances and as such doesn't sit quite as snug in its socket as compared to Chromia.
Despite not being as aesthetically pleasing as the Legends version, the use of this mould has allowed for some improvements to articulation. Full ankles via two sets of joints, knees (which are sadly limited by the car parts on her calfs), hips, partial waist (limited by the codpiece), rotating shoulders, bicep swivel, rotating elbows, and neck, with the greatest "improvements" being the waist and ankle. What I like about the use of Chromia versus Arcee is that her thighs don't look so chunky, which is unfortunately offset by an upper torso that looks like life jacket. Both feature kibble that I'd rather not see there, with the Chromia mould having more. While it's not the colour scheme people wanted, the paint itself is applied very evenly, which is something that can be said for the Siege line overall, and I do enjoy the fact that her gun isn't just a blob of plastic that is predominately one primary colour. It's just really hard to see the grey paint if the lighting is not great. The hip joints on Nightbird are tighter than that of my Chromia, but it wasn't to the point where I'd even bother trying to add any COMBAT attachments, seeing how Chromia just bent over backwards and gave up when she was given upper body modifications.
Transformation into vehicle mode is pretty straight forward, or at least it is to someone who's fiddled with this figure before. A word of warning - as indicated on other pages such as Cybertron.ca, Hastak didnt' quite think things through with regards to using painted translucent plastic for the "hood" of the vehicle mode, and there have been multiple reports of pieces snapping off. I was able to avoid that but that could be because I was moving extra gently due to the advanced warning. While Nightbird loses some of the lighter coloured accents present on Chromia, I'll just come out and say it - the glossy black finish is freaking awesome, especially if you're using flash for lighting. The use of glossy paint also allows for the black to actually be consistent across the entire vehicle body, which is welcome as the paint covers both translucent and grey matte plastics. I also love the purple canopy, and how nicely the yellow gun stands out from the vehicle mode, as opposed to again, the predominately single colours of Chromia.
That, friends, was Nightbird. It's not for everyone, and as soon as it was mentioned that it would be Chromia that was used as the base, the love/hate relationship was inevitable. It admittedly doesn't look as pleasing as the Legends version, but as a toy, my only real gripes are the use of brittle plastics for hood piece and, admittedly untested, it's likely inability to equipment COMBAT gear and actually stand up properly. She is a welcome addition to my Fembots, and will stand proudly next to the Legends addition like her budget stunt double.
DSC_0932
Ah Mondays.. beginning of another work week, start of another pay cycle, and of course, another day to open and review neat stuff. Today, for your consideration, I have for your Nightbird from the Transformers War for Cybertron: Siege line. The figure is released under the Generations Select subline, which features various characters and concepts that didn't quite make it to the main line for.. reasons.. that's all I got. Not entirely certain about the rest of the world, but here in Canada, these figures were sold as EB Games exclusives, which is naturally, where I got mine at the standard price point of $29.99 CAD plus taxes.
Nightbird is one of those blink and you miss it characters from G1, specifically from the Japanese side of things, and effectively resembled an evil Arcee with a different head. The last figure I'm aware of this for this character was one of those, again, blink and you miss it solicitations for the Japanese Legends line, where Nightbird was, as expected, a repainted Legends Arcee with a new head, and a pair of Sai to boot. I was lucky enough to find Slipstream, Nightbird, and Blackarachnia loose and for a decent price, before things went completely crazy in Spring 2018. If you're familiar with the Legends Arcee figure, then you know exactly what to expect here.
Anyway, I guess there was enough people who missed this Legends release (or Nightbird is super popular) that caused Hasbro/Takara Tomy to say "You know what, we're going to make another one". This time, the figure wasn't a reuse of another Arcee. Nope, this time, Nightbird is a reuse of Siege Chromia, which in turn was a heavy retool of the admittedly gangly Moonracer toy from the Power of the Primes line.
Now, this figure was already the subject of my hate even before it was officially released, and I can understand why. After all, this was supposed to be a way for collectors who missed the Legends to add a Nightbird to their collection, and it succeeds at that.. but it's just super duper lazy. Unlike Ratchet, this reuse of the Chromia mould to make Nightbird is very much a one to one copy, with the exception of the head, which is brand new. The weapon itself is even a copy of what Chromia uses, which is unfortunate, because even Greenlight came with a Battlemaster to differentiate her a bit from the rest of the Moonracer clones. The repaint itself is also somewhat underwhelming - while Legends Nightbird featured a nice use of silver as its main colour, the Siege version uses a rather dull grey... or in the case of its vehicle mode, predominately black. Personally, I bought this figure knowing of these shortcomings. I'm just a big sucker for Fembots.. in case it wasn't apparent from my other buying habits. I also happened to like the Chromia toy itself, flaws and all.
So we've established that if you're expecting Legends Nightbird, you're gonna be pissed, and I've still got your attention - good, now lets talk about the figure itself.
Nightbird comes with the figure and her technically four piece weapon - the scope comes off too. I found that the scope piece was a bit on a crappier side of tolerances and as such doesn't sit quite as snug in its socket as compared to Chromia.
Despite not being as aesthetically pleasing as the Legends version, the use of this mould has allowed for some improvements to articulation. Full ankles via two sets of joints, knees (which are sadly limited by the car parts on her calfs), hips, partial waist (limited by the codpiece), rotating shoulders, bicep swivel, rotating elbows, and neck, with the greatest "improvements" being the waist and ankle. What I like about the use of Chromia versus Arcee is that her thighs don't look so chunky, which is unfortunately offset by an upper torso that looks like life jacket. Both feature kibble that I'd rather not see there, with the Chromia mould having more. While it's not the colour scheme people wanted, the paint itself is applied very evenly, which is something that can be said for the Siege line overall, and I do enjoy the fact that her gun isn't just a blob of plastic that is predominately one primary colour. It's just really hard to see the grey paint if the lighting is not great. The hip joints on Nightbird are tighter than that of my Chromia, but it wasn't to the point where I'd even bother trying to add any COMBAT attachments, seeing how Chromia just bent over backwards and gave up when she was given upper body modifications.
Transformation into vehicle mode is pretty straight forward, or at least it is to someone who's fiddled with this figure before. A word of warning - as indicated on other pages such as Cybertron.ca, Hastak didnt' quite think things through with regards to using painted translucent plastic for the "hood" of the vehicle mode, and there have been multiple reports of pieces snapping off. I was able to avoid that but that could be because I was moving extra gently due to the advanced warning. While Nightbird loses some of the lighter coloured accents present on Chromia, I'll just come out and say it - the glossy black finish is freaking awesome, especially if you're using flash for lighting. The use of glossy paint also allows for the black to actually be consistent across the entire vehicle body, which is welcome as the paint covers both translucent and grey matte plastics. I also love the purple canopy, and how nicely the yellow gun stands out from the vehicle mode, as opposed to again, the predominately single colours of Chromia.
That, friends, was Nightbird. It's not for everyone, and as soon as it was mentioned that it would be Chromia that was used as the base, the love/hate relationship was inevitable. It admittedly doesn't look as pleasing as the Legends version, but as a toy, my only real gripes are the use of brittle plastics for hood piece and, admittedly untested, it's likely inability to equipment COMBAT gear and actually stand up properly. She is a welcome addition to my Fembots, and will stand proudly next to the Legends addition like her budget stunt double.