Transformers War For Cybertron Kingdom Core Class K3; Vertebreak: Does she count as a Spooky Scary Skeleton?

 Ever since watching the Beast Wars cartoon, there has been something about the pilot episode that has confused me. Ignoring the "it's because of the toys" reason when the Darksyde is searching for compatible alternate modes for the Predacon crew. It finds Dinosaur fossils; why didn't the Dinosaur Predacons turn into fossilized dinosaurs? It was searching for biological alternate modes for the Predacons, and bones are biological material. Why did the computer create a muscle and scale mockup for the bones based on their placement before turning most Predacons onboard into Dinosaurs?

I bring this up because of one of the gimmicks for the War for Cybertron Trilogy. In all three toylines, Siege, Earthrise and Kingdom, specific figures have been designed to be broken apart and reassembled into different configurations, both for Transforming between their alternate and robot modes and the ability to turn into accessories for other figures (to mixed results). For Siege, it was the Weaponizers, Earthrise had the Modulators, and Kingdom has the Fossilizers. "Now you too can give your red and blue truck a giant bone sword!" Though today's subject doesn't get to break apart like her Deluxe sized wave companion Paleotrex, she does get to inherit the Fossilizer aesthetic, giving us a female Transformer that turns into a Dracorex fossil. Meet one of the newest Predacons, Vertebreak!

 
As mentioned above, Vertebreak turns into a Dracorex fossil, and one of the biggest compliments I can give her right off the bat is that the alt mode looks great. Except for the silver screws in the joints, it's pretty hard to tell from a distance that she transforms at all. Thanks to the bone sculpting effortlessly blending the sculpting gaps for the sake of transformation, this toy can easily be passed off as an ordinary dinosaur fossil toy. The only outlier in this is the ball sockets on the ankles, and it makes her look like she's wearing Dinosaur foot-shaped high heals. I appreciate how minimalistic the paint decoration is, keeping to the skeletal design by mixing the black and very dark brown plastic, giving it a simple look that doesn't feel basic. Articulation is fine for the most part. Some of the limbs, like the arms being moulded in, I can live with considering how small the components are. However, it would have been nice to have an actual mouth and not a bit of soft plastic moulded open. 

 

The transformation isn't anything spectacular for a Legends/ Core Class character. Remove the tail, flip out the arms, Dino head in the chest to reveal the robot head, then give her the tail as a... Bone sword? Bone whip? A Predacon version of the Sword of the Creator from Fire Emblem? The tail weapon is nothing to write home about, but it's at least a common use of beast kibble, and it even has well-disguised back storage. It's not as sturdy of a connection as Rattrap's is and will fall off if you knock it, but it will hold reasonably well. The robot mode itself is pretty nice, with some silver and red paint being revealed for the robot to add some extra colour to it. The ball joint articulation is back for everything but the knees, giving you everything other than a wrist and waist swivel. However, her most significant problem is that she's competing with Rattrap as a wave mate, so while she's nice, she feels underwhelming compared to Rattrap as she's far more basic by comparison. 

The core of Vertebreak's problems come back to that last line. "She's far more basic by comparison". There's nothing wrong with the toy itself. It's a nice cheap Transformer with a lot of play value thanks to the straightforward transformation and well-placed joints. But when put side by side with her wave companions, Rattrap and Optimus Prime, nothing stands out about her. She hasn't got the excellent engineering of Rattrap or the brand recognition of Optimus Prime. As a result, she looks like a low effort wave filler by comparison, which is a shame. Vertebreak might not be a spectacular toy, but she is still an enjoyable one and one I do recommend picking up. The original plan was to review Cobra Commander next, and regarding Toybox reviews, he will be the next one covered on the site. However, with all the buzz surrounding the Snyder Cut, I think it might be good to dust off the Main Site and review not only the movie itself but the streaming service I saw the film on, Binge.

Transformers War for Cybertron Kingdom Core Class K2; Rattrap: Still think we're all going to die?

I mean if this toy came out last year, there's a good chance I would have agreed with him.

With the, shall we say, waining popularity of the Battlemasters and Micromasters in Siege and Earthrise, along with the vocal demand to bring back the Legends size class, it's no surprise that Hasbro caved in to demands and did just that. Launching in Kingdom Wave 1, Hasbro released three Legends Class type toys under the new Core Class branding (because consistent naming schemes don't make sense in the eyes of Hasbro). For the next two weeks, I'll be looking at the two Core Class figures I was interested in out of the initial wave, Predacon Vertibreak, and this week's review of Maximal Rattrap.
 

I'll start with the rat model because it has a similar issue to the one I had with the two Spiders from last week. It looks great, but the articulation in the rat model is (while for good reasons) lacking when compared to other Transformers. He's about as articulated as most Generation 1 toys in alt mode, but the difference is that those are cars and trucks, while this is a rat. None of the legs moves outside of a transformation joint for the back legs, the tail doesn't move, and the head can only move when going into robot mode. I'm more forgiving of it for its size and the fact that the transformation is well done; however, if you're looking for something as agile as the Generations one from 2014, then you're going to be disappointed. Another note of comparison between it and the Generations one (from what I can tell from video reviews) is the lack of integrated weapon storage, which was one of the big selling points of Beast Wars. Like Optimus Primal's Swords, Rattrap's gun has nowhere to go in Beast Mode other than pegging onto the side of the leg. It's another minor issue that I'm willing to look past due to the size, though it would have helped fill in the hole under the stomach, which is very noticeable thanks to the robot thighs peeking out of the side, and the visible hands underneath the start of the tail. For some positives, though, the sculpting work on the rat model is excellent. I love the sculpted fur on it, and the paint applications are minimalistic but help it stand out (it would be nice if the tail was painted like the hands and feet are, but it's not a deal-breaker). It's a shame that, for a figure based on a character that came from a toyline all about detailed animal modes, Rattrap's rat mode feels forced in, it is the weakest of the three modes, but a part of that comes from how good the other modes are. 

After an entertaining but straightforward transformation, the robot mode is by far the toy's standout mode. While he's not flawless, the good far outweighs the bad. I love how elegant he is to move around, only missing a waist swivel and a pair of wrist swivels, but for a figure of this size, I don't mind him missing things, especially when everything else is so well jointed. As with the original Rattrap toy, Ball joints are the primary source of articulation, with every joint other than a swivel for the neck being achievable with a ball joint. This makes moving him around very easy; however, due to the joints relying on plastic friction, this may change over time as the joints become weaker. The only issues I have with the joints are the lack of a locking point for the shoulder assemblies to stay. It's not a deal-breaker, more like a minor inconvenience. Once again, paint is used sparingly, with the only new paint applications revealed in this mode being the robot mode face (or at least, more clearly seen as he does have a visible robot head in Rat mode) and silver on the lower arms. I love the fact that he has little Maximal logos on his arms. One of my most significant issues from a few years ago during Titans Return and Power of the Primes was stickers being used for faction logos for the Voyager toys and anything larger and more expensive to purchase. The fact that they could get Maximal symbols, something they likely didn't have on hand because of how uncommon Maximal toys are in relation to Autobots and Decepticons (at least in the last five years), this miniature is impressive to me. One advantage Core Class has over the older Legends class figures, at least the ones during the Prime Wars trilogy, is that at the cost of them getting smaller (to better scale with the bigger figures), they're coming with accessories again. Rattrap comes with a nicely sculpted blaster (that is blast effects compatible). While its implementation in Beast Mode isn't ideal considering the original Beast Wars toyline, the robot mode implementation is great thanks to the ability to store it on his back seamlessly.  

 

As someone who doesn't have the Generations Rattrap, would I have liked this to be a mini version of that toy? Yes, but the sacrifices made for the sake of the size class still work well overall. Though I am jumping the gun a little in terms of timing, this is the best Core Class figure in Wave 1 of Kingdom and a new standard for Transformers at this scale. I'm not someone who is against smaller Transformers being in the Deluxe scale for the sake of engineering, so I hope that they don't limit these kinds of characters to just this size once Kingdom is over. I'm not entirely convinced Warpath and Huffer weren't intended for Earthrise yet, so it. If you find him, he's worth picking up, though if you're not a stickler for size, the Generations one might be better. I'll see you next week for the Predacons one, Vertibreak.