Arachnoids

Allegiances: Predacon
Size: Mini-Con
Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: Dark purple and some yellow and pale seafoam green
Individual Rating: 6.0

    Tarantulas comes with two of these guys, identical in every way-- for reasons that will be explained shortly. Like some of the other Club exclusives, these Arachnoids are redecoes from a Arms Micron toy, previously available only in Japan-- in this case, a toy named Ida. In beast mode, this toy resembles a mechanical arachnid, though honestly if you want to get technical it's more insect than arachnid-- it's only got six legs. Two underneath the head and thorax are short and stubby, but I guess to "compensate" for those the last two legs are SUPER long the point where it's pretty ridiculous to see them as anything other than claw-halves that will be used in its weapon mode. I do love the yellow stripes on these long legs, though-- they not only help tie the Arachnoids in thematically with Tarantulas, but they look nicely against the dark purple that is the main plastic color for these little guys. There's also some soft pale green used for the sole optic sensor in the front, which is also a nice contrasting color. I wish some other paint was used on the toy, but unfortunately it seems like the Arms Micron toys just don't get much paint, period. The mold detailing is pretty decent on the abdomen "flap" over the rear two legs, with some nice angular stripes and lines here and there, and the head is fairly well-detailed too, but otherwise the Arachnoids have fairly minimal mold detailing-- just enough to give them a little visual interest, and little more. Given how many ways these Arms Microns can be connected, the Arachnoids have several ports and pegs-- 5mm ports on the sides of the main body as well as on the top and bottom near the rear of the abdomen "flap", with two additional ones on the underside of the flap in this mode, one on the inside of each of the rear legs/claws, and one where the "butt" for this mode is. As far as 5mm pegs, there's one on each side near the back end of the main body, and one on the bottom of this area of the toy as well; thus, like pretty much all Arms Microns, you can combine these guys with other compatible weapons in myriad ways. As for articulation, this toy can move back-and-forth slightly at the front two legs (as one). Otherwise, you aren't posing these guys much beyond their "default" position.
    The transformation for these guys is pretty simple-- just flip the abdomen flap over, the front little legs up, and then one of the large rear legs up. The "official" transformation for this mold for Arms Micron was the flip BOTH of the back legs up for a claw-weapon, but it makes much more sense to only flip one up-- why? Because then if you have Tarantulas hold one Arachnoid in each hand, it closely replicates his claw-hands from his Season 1 design! This is another reason why I love the yellow paint apps (though I wish they were on both sides of the claws, not just one), as they fit right in with Tarantulas. Considering that these mold's weren't at ALL made with Tarantulas in mind, this is one of FunPub's most ingenious uses of a mold in their entire history, and it works almost perfectly. The only quibble I have here is that, due to the mold's construction, if you leave one claw up and the other down they're not on the same "plane", so they couldn't theoretically clack together-- one's more left or right than the other. Still, this is a small price to pay for such an ingenious alternate usage for these guys.
 

Tarantulas

Allegiance: Predacon
Size: Deluxe
Difficulty of Transformation: Hard
Color Scheme: Dark purple, black, pale seafoam green, and some yellow, transparent orange, silver, and dark metallic green
Individual Rating: 9.0

(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 Autobot Alliance Wreck-Gar. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of Autobot Alliance Wreck-Gar here.)

    I'll say it right off the bat; picking this mode for "pre-Beast Wars" Tarantulas was just absolute genius. He's a motorcycle-- which hearkens to his Transmetal "vehicle" form-- he has a similar chainsaw weapon as that same form, and with the Arachnoids you can replice his mandible-claw hands from his initial Beast Wars form as well. As far as colors go, FunPub has reproduced Tarantulas' initial colors pretty darned well, given the motorcycle proportions. His main color is (of course) a nice dark purple, and there's a fair amount of black in there as well-- usually on fitting areas like the wheels, tailpipe, and handlebars, but on a few other areas like the lower abdomen and waist, in a manner similar to how black was used on the original toy. There's also a fair amount of yellow used to replicate Tarantulas' original paint apps, including stripes on his lower arms and on the front of the motorcycle, as well as the details on his spider abdomen replicated on the main body of the motorcycle mode. Departing a bit more from his former toys, Tarantulas also has two really neat shades of green; a more generous helping of pale seafoam green, which works VERY well contrasting against the dark purple-- to me this is a positive change, as the lighter green not only contrasts better than the green on the original, but also isn't so different that it prevents the toy from looking like Tarantulas. (That said, I DON'T think the light green goes well with the yellow border around the seat-- that to me isn't a good color combo.) There's also some nice dark metallic green used on the lower robot waist and the interior of the wheels. This latter shade of green looks nice by itself, but against the black I don't think it contrasts well enough-- it should have been just a TOUCH lighter to make it more obvious against the black. As some final accent colors, there's a bit of silver on the headlight and some transparent orange on the windshield and the lightpiping for the head, which complements the yellow well. Tarantulas uses Scrapheap's head, and quite ingeniously uses little "mandible"-like details on the side of the faceplate, with the center painted black to replicate Tarantulas' mouth. It looks quite a lot like Tarantulas' head minus the "organic-ness" of the BW design.
    No mold changes have been made to Tarantulas.

    The TFSS 3.0 Tarantulas w/ Arachnoids set is ingenious. Tarantulas takes a mold that fits him in multiple respects and adds in a nearly-perfect color scheme with a lot of great paint shades, and the Arachnoids work both as minions and as a way to give him his claw-hands. Plus, Tarantulas is just a pretty good mold itself. This is my favorite of the TFSS 3.0 toys, and is MUCH more fitting for a "vehicular Tarantulas" than his BotCon 2016 exclusive version.
 

Reviews by Beastbot

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