ASTROTRAIN

TRANSFORMERS WAR FOR CYBERTRON: SIEGE (HASBRO)

Alright, we’ve had a couple of mix and match weeks, how about another theme week?  I’ve got a bunch of Transformers stacking up, so let’s go for a week of those, shall we?  Last year’s main line was Siege, the first entry in the announced War For Cybertron trilogy.  It’s technically wrapped up, but I’m still making my way through some of its final entries.  I looked at the line’s first triple changer, Springer, over the summer, and now I’ll be taking a look at arguably a slightly more memorable character, Astrotrain!  He’s a train, a space shuttle, and a robot all in one!  Yay!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Astrotrain is actually bridging the gap between Siege and its follow-up Earthrise.  He was initially offered in the final Leader Class assortment of Siege, but was also included in Earthrise‘s first Leader assortment.  The two figures are functionally identical, but it’s worth noting that my figure is the Siege release.  Like a lot of the Siege stuff, Astrotrain is based on his G1 design, although in his case, it’s not so much his G1 toy design as it is his G1 animation design, which used a rather different color scheme than the original toy, more of a rarity when it comes to the actual toys.  In his robot mode, Astrotrain stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and has 22 workable points of articulation.  He continues the Siege Leader trend of being a Voyager sized robot with a bunch of add-ons to justify the price point.  In his robot mode, he’s scaled to fit with the rest of the Decepticons, which of course means he ends up with a kind of small pair of vehicle modes, but that’s true of pretty much any toy version of the character, since the cartoon never really explained how Astrotrain was the same general size as everyone else as a robot, but then large enough to carry all of those same bots inside of him when in his shuttle mode.  I think I’m getting sidelined.  Astrotrain’s robot mode sculpt is quite a solid piece of work, recreating his animation design, and making for a quite nicely designed figure in his own right.  He’s definitely a bit more on the greebly side of things for a Siege toy, but for Astrotrain, I think it works.  Astrotrain’s first alt-mode makes up the “Astro” half of his name, being a space shuttle.  It’s a pretty sleek transformation process, even for (increasingly less of) a Transformers novice like me, and certainly much more satisfying than my last triple changer.  The shuttle mode is probably the most compromised of the three, being the middle point between the other two.  There are some definite changes to the general aesthetics of the shuttle, but it works overall and hits all the important notes.  What becomes the tender of the train mode is in this mode a launch pad for the shuttle, which is a nice piece of environmental set-up.  The last mode for this figure is the “Train” portion of the name.  Again, the transformation is quite a sleek and pretty easy to figure out, and the resulting train mode is probably my favorite of the three.  It’s not often the vehicle mode is my favorite mode of a Transformer, but here we are.  Astrotrain includes a sizable assortment of weapons, which the instructions identify as 2 “JF-50 Ionic Displacer Blasters,” “JF-30 Astro Blaster,” “W-15 Destabilizer Cannon,” and a “W-40 Turbo-Core Derailer”.  Heh, “derailer.”  That’s pretty funny.  All of the guns can be combined into one larger cannon, or used individually, or even combined into smaller combos, befitting the line’s modular nature.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

If I’m entirely honest, the final portion of Siege announcements didn’t do all that much for me, an only moderate Transformers fan.  While I’m happy for fans who were getting the more obscure characters like Spinister or Apeface,  I can’t say they particularly appealed to me.  However, Astrotrain was the one exception within that batch of announcements, being a character I was actually familiar with off-hand, and one I cared to own as well.  After my slightly disappointing first triple-changer experience with Springer, I was hesitant, but Astrotrain pulls it off a bit better, and is actually the first transformer I’ve kept in vehicle mode while up on the shelf.  This guy kind of surprised me.

I picked up Astrotrain from my friends All Time Toys, where the Earthrise release is currently in stock here.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay Store.