Size: Mini-Con (2-pack)
Overall Rating: 6.1
 

Blastcharge

Allegiance: Decepticon, Minicon
Difficulty of Transformation: Very Easy
Color Scheme: White, purple, moderately dark gray, and some black, metallic dark aquamarine, metallic golden yellow, and flat yellow
Individual Rating: 5.3

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

    Cybertron Blastcharge has a very cool, very Decepticon-y paint job mainly consisting of purple and white, with a bit of gray thrown in for good measure. These colors work extremely well together, and give this toy what I think is the best of the three color schemes it's hard so far. And, with the exception of the purple, it also looks fairly realistic, too. The metallic teal and yellowish gold paint apps contrast really nicely with the white as well, and overall give the toy a very finished, polished feel. The only thing I'm not too crazy about is the black window paint apps-- I mean, BLACK windows? How does THAT work?
    No mold changes have been made to Cybertron Blastcharge, though a Decepticon emblem has been painted on the left side of his vehicle mode.

Umbral Blaster (Combination of Blastcharge, Backblast, and Scrap Iron)

Difficulty of Transformation: Easy
Color Scheme: Purple, white, grayish white, moderately dark gray, muddy orangish brown, and some metallic dark aquamarine, black, metallic golden yellow, dull metallic gold, dark navy blue, and flat yellow
Individual Rating: 6.3

    The combined form of these molds this time is called the Umbral Blaster-- a very good, fitting name for a big gun o' doom, methinks. The color schemes of Scrap Iron and Blastcharge, which are nearly identical, obviously fit very well together-- too bad they're on opposite ends of the gun and connected by the odd man out, Backblast. Backblast still has the same gray and purple as his teammates, but the brownish orange doesn't really fit in completely with the other colors, though at laest it doesn't outright clash. Still, even taking that into account, the overall color scheme for this gun seems better to me than either of its previous two paint jobs, if you ask me, and looks pretty cool when a big ol' Decepticon is holding it.
 

High Wire

Allegiance: Autobot, Minicon
Difficulty of Transformation: Easy
Color Scheme: White, moderately dark blue, red, and some black, silver, charcoal gray, and dull golden yellow
Individual Rating: 6.8

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

    High Wire's new paint job is pretty cool in vehicle mode, namely because it makes him look so much like daredevil Evil Knievel's bike that I'd be surprised if that's not where the Hasbro team drew the inspiration from. The red, white, and blue colors (all of which look very good together, by the way), the all-American stars and stripes down the front part of this mode-- it all screams stunt bike. Sadly, the excellent paint job in vehicle mode makes the colors in robot mode look rather uneven-- High Wire has that nice red and blue, with a good amount of paint, on his legs and right arm, but his main body, head, and left arm are all white and completely devoid of paint apps. That uneven-ness really should've been taken into account when planning out this color scheme.
    No mold changes have been made to Cybertron High Wire, but a black Autobot symbol has been added to the front part of the bike mode, right above the molded-in Minicon symbol.

Perceptor (Combination of Grindor, High Wire, and Sureshock)

Difficulty of Transformation: Medium
Color Scheme: Sea foam bluish green, white, moderately dark blue, and some silver, charcoal gray, black, dull metallic jungle green, red, metallic goldish silver, metallic deep purple, and moderately dark metallic blue
Individual Rating: 5.6

    Perceptor's new paint job is better than his previous one-- from the chest up, at least. The red used in High Wire and Sureshock goes very well with the dark blue, and the white throughout the figure serves as a good contrasting color. The purple flames on the main body and the starts on the sides of the head also give the mode a little extra flair. The robot head, in addition to having good mold detailing, also has excellennt paint detailing this time around-- the white really helps to bring out the detail, and it's cool to see the golden color for the optics only used there and nowhere else, to make a more varied color scheme. However, the lower arms and legs are still that incredibly yucky, clashy color of sea green. That's what really throws off the whole scheme, and what, sadly, brings this version of Perceptor as a whole down to a lower score than his Energon paint job.
 

    Blastcharge vs. High Wire is a set of two fairly good Minicon molds with great paint jobs for both that surpass any of their molds' previous incarnations. As such, it's easily my most-recommended Wave 4 Minicon Battle Pack, though obvious both of their combination abilities are useless if you don't get the other two packs in the wave.
 

Review by Beastbot

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