Allegiances: Waruder

(NOTE: Because the following two toys are repaints, the rest of this is not a full-blown review. This mainly covers any changes made to the two and their color schemes, and merely compares them to the original versions of these molds. For a review on Generations Legends Waspinator-- the mold used for Buzzer-- go here. For a review on Generations deluxe Waspinator-- the mold used for Paralyzer-- go here.)
 

Buzzer

Size: Legends partner
Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: Yellow, gray, silver, and some pea green
Individual Rating: 4.0

    This whole troop builder "Waruder" set homages the bad guys from the Japanese "Diaclone" line, one of the major precursors to the original Transformers toys. In Diaclone, none of the robots were sentient-- rather, they had pilots, and for Buzzer here, he's the "pilot" for the Paralyzer drone below (though it should be made clear that the two molds cannot interact in that way at all, even though it's a cool idea). Just like the other "pilots" in this troop builder set, Buzzer's main body is a fairly straightforward gray, with some silver paint on the wings and some "bug guts" green used on the eyes for both modes, which certainly fits the alt mode. The difference for Buzzer is that the rest of his plastic has been changed to yellow, which is certainly fitting for the alt mode. That said, there's no dark colors for the yellow to really contrast against, and the toy looks a little too light-colored as a result-- I also would've appreciated a paint app or two on the yellow, but for this small of a toy I guess you can't expect too much.
    No mold changes have been made to Buzzer.
 

Paralyzer

Size: Deluxe (comes in a 4-pack with Mudfighter, Parasite, and Storm Rider)
Difficulty of Transformation: Medium
Color Scheme: White, black, transparent purplish pink, and some pink, red, light pastel purple, and dull reddish orange
Individual Rating: 8.6

    Paralyzer here is the least obvious homage out of this troop builder set; only after asking at BotCon did I get the answer that he's based off of BotCon 2007 Bugbite, which is... a bit of a stretch. Obviously this is a completely different look mold-wise, for starters. White, black, and a light purple are shared between both toys, but Paralyzer adds some more variation and the general color layout is different as well. Still, strength of the homage aside, Paralyzer looks pretty awesome-- the white and black obviously contrast against each other nicely, and the addition of pink insect eyes and purplish-pink transparent plastic for the wings, stinger, and robot eyes makes Paralyzer look like some sort of albino wasp. Thankfully the pink doesn't extend beyond these two areas and get itself into "obnoxiously loud" territory, with a nice complementary pastel purple used for the upper arms, hands, heels, waist, and a few other minor parts. It's a VERY nice shade of the color and basically complements/contrasts against every other single color quite well; in fact, I wish it were used just a bit more, like say on the abdomen or something. There's also a little purple on the diamond in the forehead of the robot head, and that combined with a bit of black paint around the eyes makes the head look pretty swell (though I would've loved some black-painted fangs). Additionally, there's some dull reddish orange used for the insect legs and a few minor parts, which is a great addition as-- other than black-- none of the other colors would've looked good on the legs, and the black is already used enough elsewhere on the figure. To top everything off, there's a bit of red paint on the lower legs in robot mode. Overall there's a good number of paint apps on Paralyzer, from the black bits on the insect forehead to the white/black stripes on the abdomen to the white paint on the lower arms. The only part that's a bit lacking in color variation is the lower legs, which have several details that aren't painted-- the red is the only paint there.
    No mold changes have been made to Paralyzer; however, like the other deluxe Waruders in this set, the robot heels are loose, which means the mold can't stand as easily as the original Waspinator version can. This is unfortunately an unfixable issue, but it's not a huge enough issue I'd say it ruins the toy.

    The Paralyzer/Buzzer set is my second-favorite of the Waruder troop builder duos. Paralyzer has a pretty unique, awesome color scheme that sort of looks like an "albino" wasp. The colors really contrast against each other very well, though this is definitely the biggest "stretch" out of the homage color schemes in this set; Bugbite was never an actual bug, and this "bug" version adds some fairly major color changes to the mix to boot. Buzzer isn't anything to write home about with the added yellow, though admittedly that's probably the most fitting extra color added out of all the pilot figures in this set (and because of this, I think he fits as a partner figure to Mudfighter better). A nice set overall, but it's best to think of Paralyzer as his own thing and not a half-way Bugbite homage.
 

Reviews by Beastbot

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