Ironhide (Deluxe) [Autobot Alliance]
Vehicle ModeRobot Mode (w/ turret deployed)
Allegiance: Autobot
Size: Deluxe
Difficulty of Transformation: Hard
Color Scheme: Black, milky light bluish gray, and some dark brownish gray, transparent dark blue, pale red, light metallic silvery blue, and silver
Rating: 9.0

    Movie Ironhide now has a toy released in the deluxe class, covering nearly all your size-class bases if you want a toy of him. In vehicle mode, Ironhide pretty much looks how you'd expect-- he's a black GMC Topkick pickup, with excellent vehicular proportions all around. All of the necessary mold detailing is here, along with some paint apps on the front bumper and the taillights. It's not exactly a very colorful color scheme, but it is, of course, accurate. As far as robot mode extras, the most obvious ones are his large feet, which stick out from under the rear half of this mode. I kinda wish they folded up more, as they're really the only slight eyesore in what is otherwise a stellar mode. His pelvis does jut out SLIGHTLY from the bottom if you look at him from a directly side-on view, and you can see some of his robot parts just barely behind his dark blue transparent windows, but those are minor downsides at best.
    Ironhide's robot mode is also quite good, particularly for a toy of this scale-- in many ways, it's more accurate than the original Voyager-class version, which is quite surprising. However, there are certain things this mold hits a home run on regarding movie-accuracy, and other things it misses on. First off, the hits-- Ironhide's chest and head assembly are the most movie-accurate out of any of his toys, bar none (including the Dark of the Moon toys-- hesitant as I am to point that out, as it shows permanently just how far behind I am on toy reviews at this point). Everything just fits and collapses togehter so well, and though Ironhide's head is a TAD tiny in comparison, it's not by much, and there's plenty of paint detailing on this toy to make everything stand out. Far from being hte "all-black" bore his vehicle mode-- and many of his toys-- have been, this version of Ironhide mixes it up a little by added a healthy amount of bluish gray to his robot mode, and topping it off with some nice metallic silvery-blue and bronze paint apps. It's all done quite well, and though not the best color scheme I've ever seen, gives some much-needed variety to it while not diverging so blatantly from the movie model so as to be considered a themed "repaint" or something like that. The legs are also pretty well-done, as Ironhide has HUGE feet on his movie model, which are accurately modeled here (albeit with the tires forming the soles of said feet). However, the pieces of his vehicle mode that hang off his legs are really thin and skinny, to the point where I'm worried about inadvertently snapping one of them off during the rather complex transformation back to vehicle mode. The pieces hanging off the back of his feet are particularly large and kibbly. The pieces behind his chest fold away quite well, however, with even parts of each side of the truck mode tabbing together solidly to form his back. And this leaves us with the arms-- definitely this mold's weak point, and where most of his points off come from. Ironhide is supposed to have big, bulky shoulders and arms, but here his they're rather short and-- while not outright skinny-- they are definitely undersized and stubby. The sides of his front bumper don't form the shoulder pads on this version at all like they're supposed to. In addition, big sections of his roof just hang below said arms unceremoniously, and are his most annoying pieces of kibble in this mode, as they can get in the way of movement a bit. As opposed to his oversized twin cannons Ironhide's traditionally had, the cannon on his right arm is a bit small proportionally, and the one on his left arm is non-existant. (However, I'm not complaining about the latter, as instead that pieces comes off to form an AWESOME little turret buddy, just like in the RotF video game!) As far as articulation, Ironhide can move at the head, shoulders (at two points), elbows, wrists, hips (at three points), knees, and ankles (at two points), He's not bad by any means, but he is a tad restricted in the knees and at the shoulders because of his kibble.
    Deluxe class Ironhide is a pretty nice toy-- robot mode arms excepted-- but honestly, unless you're a huge fan of the character, there no real point in getting this toy. It's too small to display with other mainline figures, and too big to display with Legends figures. For a character like Ironhide, his weapons aren't all that impressive either, even if his deploying turret is pretty cool. His transformation is still complex, so if you want an easier one to transform you'll have to go with another version, and he doesn't have a different "themed" color scheme to make him look all that different from his other versions in vehicle mode. Which pretty much just leaves mold completists and diehard Ironhide fans to recommend this to. If you want one version of the character, go for the Recon Ironhide mold instead.



Ironhide Bio:
Ironhide is always looking for a challenge, which is why he volunteered to hunt Hailstorm solo. The two used to be in some of the same weapons clubs back on Cybertron, so Ironhide knows exactly how dangerous the Decepticon weapons specialist is. He's looking forward to the chance to test his new weaponry out against a guy with as much firepower as Hailstorm.
Strength: 8.0
Intelligence: 6.0
Speed: 5.0
Endurance: 9.0
Rank: 8.0
Courage: 9.0
Fireblast: 6.0
Skill: 5.0

Review by Beastbot

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