Beast Machines Scavenger

A week or so ago I came across an auction on eBay that had three BM bascis in it with a buy it now of $15. After shipping I paid roughly $6.67 for each one, which I believe it cheaper than they were originally sold for at retail. Oh the joys of eBay. Either way, I got my twenty bucks worth, the three I got are all cool.

Scavenger is a construction vehicle, or to be precise, a destruction vehicle. Actually he resembles the same steam shovel design the original Scavenger had (there's even a square on the back of the main body of the vehicle that could even be the original's head). Of course the colors are different, and they take a little getting used to. The green and orangy colors don't go together very well, and the green is a particularly ugly shade.

The gimmick is the big rock-eating shovel (well, maybe metal, there aren't many rocks on Cybertron I suppose) which has a ball and a ratchet joint at the base, a limited swivel with a mock hydraulic in the middle, and a spring loaded hinge at the mouth. To open the mouth you pull back on a little orange pipe thingy. Very nice. He also has some weapontry (non firing) on each side of the shovel.

But wait, that's not all! He has wheels! His rear wheels are big and pretty neat and his front treads have tiny wheels in the front and it all rolls pretty well. His claws jut out the back of the vehicle mode not really doing very much, though I suppose he could plow a field or something with them.

Transformation, while simple, isn't overly evident at first. This is mainly because the main body of the steam shovel doesn't get flipped vertical, but stays parallel to the ground. Once you know that, everything is pretty simple. The main problem is that the part with the wheels arms doesn't snap into anything, but it stays quite well as the joints holding it in place a fairly stiff.

Robot mode is nifty, though I was actually expecting something bigger for some reason. He has some neato hands that can actually hold things (for instance he's holding my pen in one hand right now). Very cool. He also has his treads at his legs (just like the original!) that can be rotated to be extra long heel spurs, thus allowing for extra support in a large amount of poses. Very neat.

Also, let me address his head. It reminds me a lot of the original's in that it's small and black and doesn't stay up very well. However, you can fix this if you push up at it from the bottom with some of the ol' Excessive Force until it snaps into place.

Finally, Scavenger has a good deal of alternative modes, so fiddle with him and see what you can make. Overall, pretty cool toy. Worth the $7 he cost when he came out, and he'll be included in the upcoming RID Vehicon repaint three pack with Mirage and Spy Streak (called 'Mirage GT' and 'Nightcruz', respectively) which will cost $15 (I assume) so for $5 you can't beat it, plus the other two are cool toys as well. And he'll have better colors to boot!