(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 the original Beast Hunters commander Shockwave. For a review on the mold itself, read the review of the original Beast Hunters commander Shockwave figure here.)

    Well, this isn't what I would've guessed they would have remolded Shockwave into, but I'll definitely take it. Beast Hunters Bludgeon takes many cures from his Revenge of the Fallen figure, as he's got a color scheme based his "inner robot" from his G1 version but also has some aspects of his robot mode that call back to that same version's Pretender shell of a skeleton samurai. Bludgeon's main colors are a dark military green, light orange, and black. The orange works the best here, providing excellent contrast against all the colors, but especially the black. The dark green helps to tie Bludgeon to his tank mode via giving him "typical" tank colors (even if his tank mode is an alien "Cybertronian" tank). The black on the robot feet and treads-- as well as the bluish gray used for some minor robot pieces-- serve as nice neutral colors for Bludgeon's other shades to work off of without making the color scheme look overly loud. Plus, Bludgeon's gray is a duller, bluish gray, so it doesn't look quite as boring as the usual light milky gray plastic that's used for gray on many TFs these days. Bludgeon has a surprising number of accent colors that are used sparingly-- for example, the silver just on his cannon; the bone white on just his face; and the dark reddish brown on just his helmet and shoulder details. These help to mix things up a little and look nice, but neither of them is prevalent enough to really matter in terms of the overall color scheme.
    Bludgeon has two mold changes when compared to Shockwave; first, the head has been remolded into a really fearsome, red-eyed robotic skull samurai, who just looks about as evil as you can get for a character in a kids' toy line. The bone white particularly pops, and it's just an amazingly detailed sculpt for such a small piece. The robot chest/vehicle front also has a similarly red-eyed demon-skull face molded onto it, which helps Bludgeon look even more fearsome-- particularly in vehicle mode, where it gives him a "face". Additionally-- because Bludgeon just ain't Bludgeon without a sword-- he comes with the same sword accessory that Beast Hunter commander-class Optimus Prime comes with, with his painted red. It's an appreciated little extra, and you can stick it in a hole in either of his treads for storage.
    Beast Hunters Bludgeon is quite the imaginative remold, and does a great job of both homaging his G1 alt mode and Pretender shell while "modernizing" his design a bit. The new sculpting is incredibly well-done, and the color scheme is decent enough and more fitting of a tank than Shockwave's purple. All of this said, this is still the Cyberverse Shockwave mold, and as such his vehicle mode is still just awful. (Plus, he only saw a limited release outside of the U.S., so he's going to go for more than your usual Commander class figure.) If you want a modern version of the character, I'd recommend getting his Revenge of the Fallen verison instead.

Review by Beastbot

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