Hypothesis: What would happen if you took one of the most iconic Decepticon generals, down-scaled him, and made him into an accessory for the Combiner Wars line? Conclusion: You’d get a friggin’ sweet toy!

Shockwave comes in the standard packaging for both Combiner Wars and the newer Titans Return. Moving on!

Much like the Powerglide from this line and like Shockwave’s previous outing 2012; this logic machine takes the curiously illogical approach to his alt-mode(s). This is apparently a cannon mode but considering there’s no mount for him, he’s just lying around — unless you take a leaf out of 2012 Shockers’ play book and this is his ‘Cybertronian mobile artillery’ mode.

The real value to Shockers is in his traditional gun mode which is a faithful update to his 1985 original. While not designed for children to wield; the wily cyclops has both a 5mm peg for regular Transformers to wield him but also a clip that allows for the CW Bruticus to handle like he did in The Revenge of Bruticus (here substituted by the other famous Decepticon cyclops; Lugnut!). Depending on the friction of each figure’s joints, Shockwave can be held pretty nicely by most.

Shockwave’s transformation is simple and intuitive like many of his line-mates and the result is an adorably sized, yet perfectly proportioned, figure. He’s even around the same size as the Rewind I reviewed recently!

Shockwave’s colour scheme is simply delicious; decked out in rich purple with translucent pink highlights and the grey of his limbs making him pop all the more in contrast, a single dot of yellow to pick out his cold monocular eye.

The detail of his sculpting is impressive for a figure this size and with the help of a decent array of ball-joints and transformation hinges, you can get Shockers into a decent assortment of poses!

For an RRP of £9.99, much like Rewind and Powerglide, it’s hard for me to sell a Legends scale Transformer as a good purchase at this price point but if you can get him for even a few quid cheaper (like I did), I’d say this diminutive yet definitive Shockwave is worth your time. It’s only logical, after all…

Titans Return (well, Headmasters Return but I guess Hasbro doesn’t have that trademark anymore0 to the world of Transformers with the redux of the tiniest titanium twink, Rewind!

Originally just one of Blaster’s cassette-bots but given new relevance as once half of the Lost Light’s premiere gay-married trouble magnets, Rewind’s release – in the same line as his husband, Chromedome – is yet another instance of Hasbro taking cues from IDW’s stellar comic series, More Than Meets The Eye.

The packaging is exactly the same it was for Combiner Wars but with this year’s branding. Moving on!

The cassette-bot of 1986 gets a massive upgrade for 2016, now transforming into a touch screen MP3 player… that has a cassette themed background so it makes him look like a walkman. Still, you can plug a pair of headphones into him and he can still be loaded into the Voyager scale Blaster’s chest like a cassette… Which doesn’t make a lick of sense other than THEY DID IT IN THE 80’S!

I’m really thankful that the Combiner Wars mandate of Legends scale figures being triple-changers persists because while this Space Tank mode is as basic as they come, it does add some more value to this entry level Transformer. The transformation between all three modes is so basic yet intuitive that you shouldn’t even have to unfold the instructions.

Rewind in robot mode stands about 3½ inches tall and, barring the bulky forearm kibble, is a dead ringer for his IDW design, even down to the camera sculpted to the side of his tremendous head sculpt that pays homage to Alex Milne’s comic design.

Poseability-wise, he’s got a tremendous range of movement thanks to the hinge and ball joints; allowing for all manner of cool action poses, balancing precariously, or even cute poses when his husband finally shows up.

Overall, for an RRP of £11.99, it’s hard for me to recommend Rewind simply as a toy because when I first started doing reviews five years ago, that would be the price of a Deluxe scale figure but as a massive More Than Meets The Eye fan, I had to get him and he’ll be a permanent fixture on my desk.

Nightbeat has been a firm favourite of mine since childhood when I read the Marvel stories The Big Shutdown! and Bird of Prey. While other Transformers were just soldiers, this Autobot was a detective first and foremost and I really latched onto the idea. In the more recent IDW run, this characterisation was built upon and now he’s a member of the Lost Light crew in the ongoing title More Than Meets The Eye. Some of the more recent offerings from Hasbro’s Generations line of figures has focused on IDW characters and this is no exception so let’s take a look at Transformers Generations: Nightbeat. (Massive shout-out to my buddy Dawfydd Kelly selling me one!)

The American releases of this sub-line all come with reprints of IDW storylines and Nightbeat’s wave (and maybe a couple others) all feature parts of the recent Dark Cybertron storyline. Now there’s a few problems with this. Firstly is the cover, featuring Nightbeat rendered in the body of the 2010 Jazz toy. Early preorders also showed the figure like this but this is obviously not the toy we got. Secondly, the issue that comes with Nightbeat BARELY features him!  Dark Cybertron being pretty awful artwise is bad enough, but they didn’t even pick a good issue to showcase the character.

Nightbeat, as he was released, is using the recent Bumblebee body and it looks pretty good on him. The vehicle form is chunky and looks like the kind of muscle car a hard-boiled detective might drive. His paint scheme is a slavish homage to his G1 roots, even down to the flame deco on his doors. The paint is crisp and clean, picking out some great details in silver and yellow.

His dual blasters can plug into the rear of his vehicle mode as both front-facing weapons or maybe even some Star Trek nacelles!

Unfortunately, Nightbeat’s robot mode chest doesn’t sit flush and really hampers the rolling ability of his car form.

Transformation is incredibly simplistic but is also intuitive enough to not feel boring. There’s some clipping issues that spring up when going from robot-to-vehicle but nothing major.

The robot mode is pretty cool. It has good proportions and casts a good silhouette but there’s some unsightly streaks in his metallic blue plastic that you should be aware of. His head sculpt is spot on but it feels a tad small. only swivels side-to-side and his red visor appears to have been chipped, which REALLY damages him for me.

‘Beat can pull off an okay assortment of poses but nothing spectacular. His shoulders are especially bad, because they move along with the rest of the arm, leaving a lot of poses out of the question.

Nightbeat’s forearms have a light wash applied to them, resulting in some pretty nice panel-lining which was a nice surprise. The dual blasters can be combined for one big gun, two seperate guns or pegged into the ports under Nightbeat’s arms for two underslung “claws”.

Compared to the RTS Jazz mold that he was intended to be, Nightbeat comes off all the lesser. While his vehicle mode looks fantastic, the robot mode suffers from the lack of articulation and build quality that the Jazz body had and the Bumblebee body just feels… bad. It looks closer to the Nightbeat we know but it suffers from bad articulation.

Ultimately, am I happy with this figure? Little bit yes and a lot more no. Am I happy to have a new Nightbeat for my Lost Light shelf? Yes, I am. Am I happy that his sub-par articulation and numerous QC issues will mean that he’ll do nothing but stand in line? HELL NO.

I’m really disappointed with how this figure turned out and can’t recommend it and that really sucks to say.