Prime Spotlight presents:
BadCube OTS-04 Wardog
By Stygian360
Bottom Line (**** ½ stars- <out of a possible 5>)
Introduction:
This quick example should hopefully shed some light on how much I love Warpath. When Hasbro recently announced their plans to do Warpath as part of their Combiner Wars line- a retool of the tank version Megatron released in 2014- I was less than thrilled, but because I’m such an avid fan I decided to buy him anyway because, well, Warpath. So why was I initially lukewarm by this version of Warpath? Well, Megatron cannon arm is one and no chest cannon is another, but also because of his mostly inaccurate alt mode. But I digress. Ultimately I really do like me some Warpath, so when BadCube announced plans to produce one, and in a healthy ‘Masterpiece-like’ scale, I was quite pleased. So, does War Dog fit the bill better than his recent Hasbro kissing cousin? Let’s find out.
Articulation:
I was actually quite pleased with War Dog’s articulation. Never let it be said that BadCube doesn’t understand its way around a fresh approach to articulation engineering. Granted, you’re not going to be tearing this figure apart to build the next lunar lander, but he’s got plenty of great things going on. Now I’m the first to admit that I’m not really into things on sliders or pull-out, pop-up joints- all of which War Dog makes use of- but as long as everything is sturdy and well done, as it is here, than whether I agree with how it was done is less important than does it work. In this case it absolutely does. All of the various sliders and pop/slide-out joints make full use of every possible way to hide articulation points, but also make it all functional. In other words, in a category where I might otherwise give a perfunctory and quick description, here I’ve attempted to illustrate that BadCube really went above and beyond. Some might even say too beyond. But I’d rather see the bright side and with this figure there’s plenty of it. Ultimately the articulation is solid and it all works great.
Paint:
Not much to speak of as he’s molded in red. There are paint ops on his face and metallic eyes (is that technically paint?), but otherwise his molded plastic color does the job. Oh, and his eyes look really good as a cool metallic blue accent which adds just the right element of ‘pop’.
Transformation:
You are either going to love it or you are going to hate it- it’s that simple. Personally I loved it once I made it all the way through. I had already greased the rails by having previously watched a video transformation demo, but even without instructions I was able to manage it… mostly. The shoulder area going into alt mode was a bit confounding and due to those aforementioned ubiquitous sliders it’s difficult to know what is going to slide and or pull-out until you are right on top of it, but it is manageable and dare I say fun once you have the hang of it. And I will warn you that once the leg and thigh pieces are pulled out and perhaps even the arms/shoulders you’re going to have a bunch of floppy parts that don’t look like much, but once you start tabbing and slotting things into their proper places it will all come together beautifully. In fact I was mildly shocked once I had the thing together in alt mode as to how solid and harmonious the whole thing looked. It was literally touch and go before that point and almost… scary. Was it all going to actually fit together and look right? Fortunately my apprehension was unfounded. Again, you are either going to be a convert by the end of it or you are going to want to beat your head against a wall in shame, but you will make it through okay- I promise.
Bottom Line:
As an avowed Warpath fan I was not disappointed with War Dog. Before I had the figure in-hand and after having watched a video review I sagged a bit thinking he would be a disappointment, but I should have known that’s not how BadCube does things. These guys really know what they are doing and I will never doubt them again. This figure evokes the character really well, takes a few liberties with how to get a figure from alt to robot mode but does so in a fun and challenging way, and by the end of the process I felt like I’d just climbed Mt. Everest… or at least a minor mountaintop. That level of satisfaction at least. In other words he’s worth it fellow collectors. I promise.
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