Decepticon Bludgeon

Allegiance: Decepticon
Size: Voyager
Difficulty of Transformation to Robot: Easy
Difficulty of Transformation to Torso: Medium
Color Scheme: Vibrant moderately light forest green, moderately dark muddy brown, black, and some light glossy purple, light pale yellow, bone gray-white, dark glossy navy blue, orange, silver, bone yellowish-white, white, and light milky glittery gray
Individual Rating: 9.5

(NOTE: Because this is a repaint, this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the mold and the color scheme, and merely compares it to Combiner Wars Hot Spot. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Combiner Wars Hot Spot here.)

    Bludgeon's gotten several different toys over the past decade or so, but all of them have primarily homaged his G1 Pretender shell in robot mode, while taking his "inner" robot's tank vehicle mode instead. Well, not for this version-- in BOTH modes, this version of Bludgeon homages the inner robot of the G1 Pretender. And thanks to FunPub, Bludgeon has got a VERY eye-catching scheme. An extremely vibrant (but not bright) shade of forest green is used that is quite frankly hard to stop staring at, and the main contrast color for it is a muddy brown, which of course makes Bludgeon look rather "earthy" and thus fits a tank. There's a bit of light milky gray plastic in there too on his upper arms and legs that is unfortunately that boring milky color shade, but there's at least a little bit of glitter in there to spice things up slightly. Beyond these basic colors, Bludgeon also has a TON of accent colors that put pretty much every other toy in even THIS subscription service to shame (except for perhaps Grabuge). He's got silver on his black tires, a good deal of black on the sides of his lower legs that become his combiner upper legs, some more black on his gestalt chest, and some more silver on the grills on the side of his vehicle mode. More interestingly, he's got a good deal of a few shades of bone white-- homaging his Pretender shell at least a little, I guess-- on his robot face and some parts of his chest, much of his gestalt chest and head, and in lines and squares along several areas of his vehicle mode, such as vents and panels and the like. The white goes EXTREMELY well with the already wonderful forest green, and is my favorite color combo on this toy. There's some orange on his robot mode shoulder pads and visor to help differentate that mode a little more from the others, and a bit of pale yellow on his lower chest (approximating headlights), and some of that same yellow on his actual lights. He's got a really nice shade of light purple used on his cannons as well, and his face sculpt is very well-colored with a brown helmet, black stripe along the forehead, and a purple "jewel" in the middle. Really, there's nothing about Bludgeon's color scheme I don't love (other than the light gray plastic). He's a cornucopia of colors, and there's no area that's too one-tone on him due to all the paint apps. It should be noted that, due to the chest cavity, Windsweeper's Matrix of Malice can be stored in Bludgeon's chest in his normal robot mode, though otherwise he can't interact with it.
    Bludgeon has a few mold changes; a new robot headsculpt for one, which as I mentioned before is painted marvelously, but also is sculpted marvelously as well. I love the long angular chin and that we finally get a toy of him with his inner robot's face. He also comes with a new gestalt head sculpt, which we'll get to shortly, and two gigantic swords, which come from a Japanese train version of Optimus Prime. They certainly fit Bludgeon well and look wicked, although a bit too large proprtionally. Unfortunately he has the same misassembly in the middle of his legs that some other version of this mold like Pyra Magna have, but at least it's an easy fix and doesn't break the toy easily.
 

Thunder Mayhem (Combination of Decepticon Bludgeon, Spinister, Needlenose, Grabuge, and Windsweeper)

Allegiance: Decepticon
Individual Rating: 8.9

    Thunder Mayhem is the combination of nearly all of the TFSS 4.0 figures. A Pretender for the torso, two Double Targetmasters for the arms, and two Triggercons for the legs... you don't think it would work, but combining 5 late '80s Decepticons with such wonderful color schemes into one massive combiner looks pretty cool. They're definitely five different toys-- unlike with some combiners, not much effort was done to really "unify" the color schemes in any meaningful sense. Both of the hands are light gray and both of the feet are dark aquamarine, and the former blend in pretty well with the revealed gray on the combiner mode chest, but that's about it. That said, none of them clash with each other by any means, and the beautiful forest green of Bludgeon with some light gray for contrast forms a nice centerpiece to the whole thing. The giant swords actually look pretty proportional when used in combined mode, as well. That said, the one thing I DON'T like about Thunder Mayhem is his new head mold, which is Thunderwing, with a very "Marvel Comics-esque" look to him, what with the black rings around the eyes and all that. The actual sculpting is quite well done, with the dark blue head crest, the bone white head, the yellow face-- it all looks like it's lifted right out of the '80s comics. The only iffy thing from a sculpting perspective is that if you look at the head strictly from a side-on view, it's just a tad too flat because of space considerations in the other modes (it's blatantly obvious in Bludgeon's vehicle mode, unfortunately). However, I'm not a fan of having the combiner mode be a completely different established character that was never a combiner. I think it would've made more sense if the combined head had instead been Bludgeon's Pretender skull face, perhaps with a few minor details from the other members mixed in. Thunderwing as a whole combiner just doesn't work for me if none of the components are actually Thunderwing.

    TFSS 4.0 Bludgeon is an absolute beaut of a toy, with a dazzling array of colors (that forest green in particular is spectacular), tons of paint apps, and is a great homage to the G1 Pretender's inner robot, making this a bit of a different Bludgeon homage, for those of you who might be tired of Samurai Skeleton Bludgeon. That said, because of how much of him is dedicated to the combined Thunder Mayhem mode, I'd recommend him less if you don't want to combine him than the other TFSS 4.0 figures. But in terms of just being an outstanding-looking mold... wow. It really shows you how much the right colors can make a toy.
 

Reviews by Beastbot

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