Review: #291
Name: Brawl
Brand: Transformers
Allegiance: Decepticon
Line: Generations - Combiner Wars
Year of Release: 2015
Size Class: Deluxe (Wave 5)
Mold Status: new
COMIC:
Brawl comes with Robots in Disguise #9, an
issue that was originally supposed to come with Skydive. Continuing on from the previous episode,
Ironhide is running away from the Dinobots who are relentless hunting him and
wanting to destroy him. It ends up quite
interesting actually as you're left wondering what has caused this to occur. Something is happening, but it is still
hidden from us. The ending is a surprise
with the appearance of a familiar bot and gives rise to implications that could
happen in future episodes.
TANK MODE:
True to his G1 self, Brawl transforms into a tank and perhaps most surprisingly, Brawl is a completely new mold! This is somewhat rare due to the prevalence of remolds in the latter waves of Combiner Wars.
New mold does not automatically mean an awesome mold though since Brawl feels just a tad bit too short. The treads are molded in, there are small plastic wheels on the bottom to help him roll.
Brawl is compact but he feels nice in your hands. There are heaps of sculpted detailing.
The combiner piece can be tabbed on top of the turret for a secondary turret. This is one of the better integrations of the combiner piece we have seen. Unfortunately, the turret cannot rotate.
While fairly static in nature, this is a detailed alternate mode.
TRANSFORMATION:
Brawl's transformation reminds me a lot from PowerCore Combiners Heavytread. Thankfully this also means he breaks away from the typical Combiner Wars transformation a little bit. It is still a simple transformation of extending the back of the tank for his legs, and the front treads separating to form his arms. The only tricky thing going from robot to vehicle is how to collapse his waist as it is not terribly intuitive.
ROBOT MODE:
Now it is time for Brawl's robot mode and he is... stocky and something just feels off about him. His shoulders seem too big, forearms too short and chest too stout.
He carries the turret on his back which is to be expected really. Otherwise, he is quite kibble free.
The headsculpt is very good and detailed. It is only on a swivel joint though.
He is roughly the height of a standard Deluxe. The bulky look lends well to the character.
Poseability is slightly better in some areas and slightly worse in others. His shoulders, as you can suspect, is hindered thanks to the large shoulder pads. There are joints inside the shoulders to help alleviate this weakness but on the whole, it's still hard to get him arms straight out.
The surprisingly area though is Brawl's feet which has a huge range of motion thanks to the side and back joints (mainly for combiner mode transformation). This means he can stand flat in a huge variety of poses.
The first weapon for Brawl is the cannon which has been detached from the turret. It's a thin piece and doesn't look terribly impressive.
He can hold it in either hand and it looks good enough.
The other option is pegging it onto the outside of his forearms which looks much better.
He lacks paint applications in this mode, instead relying on the green plastic with a few highlights here and there.
Brawl's other weapon is the combiner piece itself, which doubles up as a dual-barreled gun.
You can use the same place on the turret to store the weapon on his back. One thing to note is that Brawl's waist doesn't click into place very securely so he'll most likely flop around when trying to pose him.
Naturally you can have him hold the weapon in his hands but due to the short forearms, it means he cannot bend his elbows to aim.
The other spot you can use the weapon is on the outside of his forearms
Apart from the odd proportions and the waist issue, this is a nice robot.
OVERALL:
Brawl is the excitement of Wave 5, just because he is a new mold. However, Brawl has his own share of flaws which means the other Combiner Wars molds are better and more solidly built. The waist issue really should have been solved during the testing phase. Then again, no matter how bad the figure is, you will purchase it because he is an integral part of Bruticus. Plus, he is not a horrible toy in the end and still quite fun.
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For other Transformers reviews, have a look at this page.
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Brawl is a Combiner Wars figure, so he has two more modes to show off. He forms a part of Bruticus along with his fellow Combaticons, here's a quick look at his two limb modes.
First up, and this is his normal configuration, is that he forms the leg. The turret acting as a knee spike is really neat.
He forms a really solid leg with great proportions, although the same complaint of the line is that the feet looks small in proportion to the combined mode.
He other form is the arm. He has a unique transformation into limb mode which made it more interesting than usual.
Due to the blocky nature of the figure, the arm is quite thick and big. That's about it for the figure though, thanks for looking!