Transformers; War for Cybertron; Siege Seeker Mold (Starscream, Thundercracker and Skywarp... plus some Battlemasters too I guess)

So... after last week's takedown of the Classics toy and it's many, many, many, many repaints, I figured it might be a solid idea to look at the Siege release of Starscream, and the repaints that came from him... is what I would say if most of them weren't a pain to get, either due to price (in the case of Red Wing), or because a company that licences the name and look of another company can't get the exclusives of that company so no Rainmakers for me without booking a holiday trying to track the set down. (insert sad face emoji here). Skywarp would have also been in that camp, but Amazon is far less strict about where it sends it's packaging too (and you people wonder why physical stores are dying out, other than the fact that it's getting harder and harder to find the items you're looking for and not just more Fortnite figures and motion-sensing ninjas that fart... I wish I was kidding about that last one, it's actually really obnoxious). With the core three though, many like myself are at least satisfied, and there's enough to do a review (though I do wish I could get those Rainmakers...).

Before going to the Seekers though, I'll quickly cover the three included Battlemasters that came with Skywarp. Because it wasn't enough to lock Skywarp away behind an exclusive, he had to come with three other repaints for the sake of marketing it as the "Decepticon Phantomstrike Squadron". As such, he comes with Fracas (a repaint of the wave 1 Battlemaster Firedrive), a Targetmaster normally associated with Scourge, however, unlike Hotrod and Firedrive, I'm waiting for a better Scourge to give this guy too because mine suffered a lot from loose joints. Another repaint is Shrute, a repaint of the Wave 2 Aimless (that you can still buy here in bulk, please do so we can get rid of that stock for the wave 3 weapons!), who'll go with Spinister when that gets released, and Terror-Daxtyl, a repaint of the other wave 2 weapon, Pteraxadon, who unlike the other two, turns from a Pterodactyl to an axe, and kinda has a third mode as a gun. All three come with repaints of their effects parts, and on the whole, they're solid. In terms of quality control, I wish Fracas' backpack gun was a bit tighter, and Shrute's was a bit looser, but on the whole, they're fine.

Going to the main event though, starting in jet mode, and considering the designs they were trying to replicate, these look great. Not flawless by any stretch of the imagination, but still great recreations of the Generation 1 Tetrajets. For context, the Tetrajets are the designs the Seekers had at the start of the G1 cartoon, which could be summed up as flying triangular pyramids. It's stupid, but it conveys the space jet motief very well all things considered. I'll focus on Starscream for the deco, because while all of them share the same paint applications, including the battle damage spots of paint, Starscream's grey plastic helps with some of the darker paint applications, particularly the Decepticon logos on the wings, which are hard to see on Thundercracker, and especially on Skywarp. But the trade-off is that Starscream looks very bland when compared to the other Seekers, mostly because of the prominence of grey in his colours. It's hard to call that a problem though because Grey, Red and Blue are the colours Starscream is most known for. It would have looked nicer in white though. One big issue the mould has though is undercarriage. While not quite Robot under a Jet syndrome, the legs and arms are blatantly visible, yet look like they belong there thanks to it being a space jet. They look like heavy-duty booster rockets and intakes, which kinda works for me.

For the robot mode, these are nice representations of the Generation 1 designs. With Siege, I think it's at its best when it goes for a futuristic alternate mode, with a G1 robot mode. Don't get me wrong, they have some kibble issues, but the only kibble that is a problem on them is the jet boosters on their backs. The wings are a lot bigger, but look really impressive, imposing, especially when the three of them are together. The backs are hollow, and depending on the angle, you can look through them, but it's an angle you have to work hard to get at least. Quality control has been an issue for this mould, Starscream's chest panel is very easy to pop off to the point where it's almost easier to remove it for the sake of transformation, and none of the ones I have can have their Null Rays securely connect to the shoulder ports "they're supposed to go into". While I could make them tighter if I wanted too, I like them on the lower arms anyway, so I don't mind. Those, however, are case by case depending on the individual quality control at the time it was made. Articulation is standard for the line through arm movement can be somewhat hindered by the wings. One problem Starscream had was the face sculpt, though the release of Thundercracker gives you a smirk face more fitting of him (or you can splurge for Red Wing, your choice).

Though not completely flawless, I'd have been happy making a Seeker Squad with this mould. The only problem is that the way they've been released has made that plan extremely difficult. They're not masterpieces by any stretch of the imagination, but they're fun to play with, to move from mode to mode. Could they have done Coneheads with this? No. But it would have been nice to see a Slipstream... Just saying. It's a toy worth looking into, but if you want a squad, you may as well just wait for the new one.