Posted: 05 February 2010 at 7:45pm | IP Logged

At Nems, request a thread dedicated to ROTF N.E.S.T. Bludgeon (mine arrived today).

He is f**king awesome!

Up to now, my favourite ROTF toy has been Mixmaster, but Bludgeon easily trumps him, and puts all the other Movie Decepticons in the shade. Why? Well, he's probably the first Movie 'con to have a bit of character and individulaity about him - and yes, that probably is down to him being a straight homage of the G1 original and a rough approximation of Don Figureoa's design from Stormbringer (to the point where he looks like he's staggered in from the Universe/Classics line).

The layout and colour balance is excellent, transforming from a fairly detailed (but slightly dull looking) green military tank to a nicely matched fusion of orange, black, magenta and grey.

There's some superb detailing in matching the look and feel of a traditional Japanese samurai warrior, with parts of the tank forming armour along the arms and legs and torso - which is well needed, given that Bludgeon seems to be very skeletal underneath all that plating. His bio reads that he was nearly killed by Whirl, and he certainly looks like he's emaciated under that armour - even moreso given that half his face is missing!

The removable swords and storage points in robot mode are an excellent touch, and posability is good, with movement at the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, thighs, knees and feet. I also like how the tank treads dangle around him!

Are there any bad points? Well, yes. The huge turrett kibble on the character's back does make him a little prone to overbalancing, and looks like it should include some sort of electronics, but doesn't. The soft plastic used for the swords is easily bent - the larger sword forms part of the gun barrel and due to the way mine was packed, this has bent slightly. The ankle joints are also fixed at a slight tilt, meaning he can't straighten his legs without looking like he's going to fall over his feet, but this does seem to be a pay off for giving the figure more stability. He could also do with a black wash to bring out some of the detailing, particularly on his skull face.

Overall, he's a massive win !!! and well worth the £30 or so he currently fetches on import. He is probably the first Transformer figure I've bought in a very long time and have been genuinely excited about.

Edit: since i wrote this, i read the instructions and found that the turret splits in half and provides a second storage point for the smaller sword. slow clap hands for me.