Ravage
(BotCon 2016 Exclusive)
(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 Breakdown. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Combiner Wars Breakdown here.)
Given that he was sent
by the Tripredacus Council and was clearly an agent for them in the Beast
Wars TV show, Ravage was clearly a logical choice to join the ranks
of Tripredacus to form Predacus. This toy is a bit of mix of homages--
the alt mode is a sportscar, which is an homage to Alternator
"Battle Ravage", which was the first non-BW toy to give Ravage a humanoid
robot mode, which of course is what this toy has with a panther head like
his BW appearance. As you'd expect from a Ravage toy, his primary color
by far is black. However, usually Ravage's secondary color has been gray
or perhaps silver-- not this time. This version of Ravage has a rather
nice shade of bluish white used on his car windows, sword blade, upper
arms, waist, upper legs, feet, and his chest. There's also a bit of silver
though, like on his stomach, teeth, and wheel hubs. And of course, there's
just a bit of red to keep him a little evil-looking, like on the eyes,
headlights, and waist (though I wish his taillights were painted this color
as well-- they're unpainted on this toy). All in all this makes for a pretty
nice color scheme, with the bluish white being an excellent contrast color
against all that dark black. The silver and red also are nice light contrast
colors, but aren't used enough to really contribute much to the color scheme.
The placement of the bluish white in robot mode-- particularly on his upper
arms and chest-- helps to homage some certain details that are like his
BW show model, which is brilliant given that this character definitely
was NOT kept in mind when the CW Breakdown mold as made. That said, the
bulky lower legs and-- to a lesser extent-- the car backpack do not fit
his slim look from the BW model at all, and he suffers from the same proportional
maladies in that mode that Breakdown does.
Ravage has a new headsculpt.
It looks pretty good from the front, with the "cougar head" look pretty
well-done, with the silver stripes along the sides of the head even there.
However, from a view that even remotely approaches the side, this head
looks HORRIBLE. A HUGE section of the back has been cut off-- from the
factory, apparently?-- with the head JUST deep enough to fit over the balljoint.
It definitely wasn't made for space limitations and planned from the beginning,
that's for sure. He's missing the back half of his head, and it's just
awful since otherwise it's a good headsculpt. Really unfortunate. No other
mold changes have been made to Ravage.
BotCon 2016 Ravage has
a pretty good color scheme with the bluish white and a good number of paint
apps, and the mold fits him in some aspects, like the alt mode homage and
the look of the chest and upper arms. That said, the mold's robot mode
proportions are still off, and the headsculpt is absolutely awful from
anything but a front-on view. With a few minor changes I think he could've
been a better homage. As it is, I'm rather ambivalent towards him-- he's
not great, but not awful either as an homage.
Review by Beastbot