Cliffbee.com Combiner Wars Scrapper Toy Review

Individual Review




Name: Scrapper
Series: Combiner Wars
Allegiance: Decepticon
Alternate Mode: Payloader



PAYLOADER MODE
Height: 7cm Length: 17cm Width: 8cm

   A lime green payload with purple windows on the cockpit, a purple Decepticon logo on the roof and some purple outbursts around the cockpit. He has two larger black front tyres and two smaller rear tyres - which are also black. There's not much to say about the colour scheme, being 90% green, but it's clearly Scrapper, so it works well.

   The sculpt here is pretty good, with various rivets, ladders, diamond lattices and the like. The bucket has 7 big teeth and there are sculpted pistons and such on the arms. While there's some aspect that are clearly robot bits or hinges, nothing actually jumps out and says, "I'm an arm" or anything, so overall it's a great looking vehicle.

   There's some play value here - about as much as we could ask for, in fact. The wheels turn. There are two hinges on the digger arm and while there's not one at the base of the scoop itself, I'm not critical of this as it would affect the stability of Devastator, given it's part of the big guy's foot. The wings of Devastator's chestplate can clip onto two small exhausts on the back of the vehicle, and while it may not make sense on a payloader, it's actually faithful to the "attack mode" of the G1 toy, so it's actually quite clever.

   A good payload mode that looks like Scrapper, has impressive play value given what we'd expect of a vehicle like this and the colours, while simple, match the character. Scrapper has a good sculpt, rounding off a good vehicle mode.

TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE

   Unclip the sides as his arms, flip out the fists. Flip the shins out from underneath the rear, unclip and fold out the foot plates. Fold out and separate the rear, plugging the halves into his shins as calves. Fold up the scoop arm onto his back, pull out his head and you're done.

ROBOT MODE
Height: 19cm Width: ~9.5cm (depending on pose)

   Scrapper's green is now limited to his arms and boots. His thighs and sides of his torso (kidneys, if you will) are silver while the remainder of his torso is purple and his head is black. His face is silver - including the mouth plate - with a red eyestrip. There's quite a lot of painted detail on his torso, including a purple Decepticon logo on his chest. The painted detailing syncs with both the G1 cartoon and toy - this is very much Scrapper.

   The aspect of this robot mode I like the least... is derived from its strength. It's a VERY faithful Scrapper, but the proportions are a little too cartoony - his limbs are boxy and wide, his head is square and boxy (and oversized). While the shape is fine in itself, the head and limbs are oversized - me reminds me of those oversized knock-off Transformers out there. While this isn't a killer - it's a good Scrapper - it's a shortcoming that bothers me. The same proportions would have worked better at Micromaster or G1 combiner limb scale. There's a decent level of sculpt here, but one aspect that seems simple at this scale is the large front tyres on his shoulder (which add to the "oversized" feel).

   Scrapper's poseability is good with some limitations. His head turns - it's on a restricted ball joint - while the waist is fixed. His shoulders swing and can lift out to the sides. They can also pivot back and forward for transformation, although it doesn't look especially elegant. His elbows only rotate - and this isn't much use since his forearms are hollow. On the other hand, the lack of elbow hinges feels like a failure on a toy from 2015. But on the other hand... the arms _have_ to be capable of holding firm as part of Devastator's feet; under Devastator's weight. His hips swing and lift out to the sides, while his knees are hinged with rotators. Rounding things off, Scrapper has ankle tilts. He can wield the weaponry contained within the giftset. The wings, notionally Scrapper's, form weird sword things and aren't so successful now.

   A solid robot mode, but its hampered by some simple boxiness and the elbow joints. I'm okay with the lack of elbow joints, but would have loved to see some sort of solution that allowed him to form Devastator. I'm realistic enough to know that this would have added a fair bit of complexity to the arms & probably would have gone beyond the budget (in terms of parts count), but it's still hard to overlook on what's essentially a voyager. The upside is that this is very much Scrapper, from his face to the painted details on his chest.

VARIATIONS

   There's an "exclusive" version with chromed purple elements. The Unite Warriors version has some paint changes and - most notably - a set of hinges in his elbows (which lock in place quite tightly). It also comes with a G1 style handgun.

OVERALL

   A decent update on G1 Scrapper, Scrapper is visually faithful to G1 in both modes and has - for the most part - good poseability. His robot mode is a little too boxy at this size and really would have looked better with a smaller head. If sold on his own, Scrapper would be a poor voyager, but is worthwhile as part of the Devastator giftset - 7/10

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