Welcome to The Chosen Prime: Unearth

Friday, November 25, 2016

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Toyworld Unearth - Scavenger

Continuing with the next box that happened to be at the top of my unopened stack, Toyworld Unearth is another good entry in this line. Despite a couple of headaches I didn't experience with Toyworld Bulldozer, Unearth is an enjoyable figure that I'm glad to have.

Unlike Bulldozer and Shovel, Unearth has a cab for the driver. It doesn't open, but at least it's there. The treads are purple instead of green, but are of the same style. Neither side works very well because they are really tight. I suppose I can take some of the extra links to loosen both sides. The bucket is at the end of an articulated arm. It is ratcheted at the base and hinged in the middle and at the bucket. The hydraulics are functional, which is always a nice touch. Unfortunately, the platform that the cab sits on doesn't rotate.

Transformation is similar to Bulldozer, but I had a lot of trouble with the combiner peg and the crotch section. The combiner peg has extremely tight ratchets. I had to disassemble it to move it because I didn't feel comfortable exerting pressure on the hinges it sits in. Even then, I had trouble rotating it to the proper angle. The crotch pegs don't seem to line up with the slots. I had to take a blind leap of faith that I wouldn't crack the hinge or the slots and just shove really hard. The one transformation mechanic I hate more than having to yank on legs to extend them, is having to yank on a head to pull it out of a cavity. I always worry the pegs of the panel will eventually give way.

He has light-piping, but it's blocked by the large combiner peg behind his head. I didn't knock the feet design on Bulldozer quite enough. It makes a return here with Scavenger, and it's not appreciated. From a visual standpoint, it breaks up the form of the leg. From a functional standpoint, it doesn't work all that well. The purple treads are a welcome change to Bulldozer's green treads, but it could have still used some paint applications to break up the solid block of purple from the hips down. His red nipple paint is a bit sloppy, but the rest of the silver and yellows are cleanly applied. I think he's closer to his G1 animation model than Bulldozer is to his. His iconic abdomen plate is present. The rest of the sculpt doesn't veer off too far.

His head is on a swivel and hinge, but the downward articulation is nonexistent. His shoulders are on swivels and hinges and do not butterfly. He swivels at the biceps, wrists, and waist, but suffers the same thigh swivel limitation as Bulldozer. His fingers are on individual ball joints, but there are no articulating knuckles so they are all fixed in a curve. He has double-jointed elbows that bend past 90 degrees and single-jointed knees that just reach 90 degrees. His hips are on balljoints. Those springy shins make a return. His toes and heels tilt as a unit, but rock individually. Surprisingly, the bucket and its arm doesn't really get in the way of his posability. It works great as a third leg.

His accessories are the same as Bulldozer - a rifle, a forearm, a hand, a drill, extra treads, and some screw hole covers. His rifle is done in the same style as his teammates - black with red highlights. It uses a reverse Masterpiece-style tab. It works much better than most Masterpiece-style tabs. It can also peg in vehicle mode. The combiner hand is a right hand, done in the same style. The thumb is on a swivel and hinge with two knuckles. The other fingers are not pinned, but seemed to be on a post of some sort. They have the expected three articulating knuckles, but there are also hinges near the first knuckles so the fingers can spread apart. The knuckles stay together pretty well, but the finger pieces can come apart. In the Bulldozer write-up, I'd forgotten to mention that the wrist peg is on a ratcheted hinge. The drill is black plastic. The extra treads are purple. The screw hole covers are mostly for the back of the figure.

Scavenger doesn't dissuade me from using this group in my Masterpiece display, for the time being. He scales well with his teammates and Masterpiece figures. He suffers from the same flaw as Bulldozer in regards to posability, but you can work around it. Unlike other Toyworld figures, I probably won't transform him too much because of that tight combiner port ratchet. Overall this is a good representation of Scavenger. Even if it weren't, if you're in for one, you're pretty much in for all.