Name: Stockade
Series: Movie Tie-ins
Allegiance: Decepticon
Alternate Mode: SUV
SUV MODE
Height: 5.5cm Length: 13cm Width: 6cm
A black SUV with dark transparent blue windows and headlights, Stockade has silver hubcaps and a silver grille. The taillights are painted red while there are various other silver details such as doorhandles and S7 badges on the front doors. There's a tiny Decepticon logo as a badge on the grille, which is a cool feature. The colour scheme is dark and fairly sparse without being simple as such - the details Stockade needs have been addressed, on what is a fairly sleek and straightforward vehicle.
This vehicle is mimicking the S7 van seen in the film, although it's a close approximation, not the same model of vehicle. But hey, it looks real enough and close to the vehicle seen in the film. His detailing is pretty good, with the major stuff like side mirrors, doorhandles, door seams, tailpipes, a roof rack and even a transparent blue sunroof.
Play value here is fairly minimal, which is typical of the movie toys which tend to focus more on realism - something I really appreciate about the line. The truck holds together well and the wheels roll - his plastic tyres are ridged so he'll roll along the table fairly noisily, and mine rolls very straight. There are no gimmicks here.
A fairly straightforward vehicle mode, but the paint mask and sculpt are thoughtful. Most importantly for me, Stockade does a good job of representing the S7 vans we saw in the film - which is the whole reason for this toy's creation. I like the extensive use of transparent blue - it shows that while the vehicle itself is straightforward by nature, the designer isn't trying to cut corners here.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Flip the front down to reveal the legs, fold down his feet and heelspurs, split the boots. Fold the front doors out and back, Split the roof and fold down to the sides to form arms and reveal his torso. Flip out the windshield halves to expose the hands and flip out the rear window halves to form shoulderpads. Flip out the head, and you're done. It's a pretty simple transformation, but it does work fairly well.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 12.5cm Width: 14cm
A black and silver robot, Stockade is largely black with silver boots and some silver on his upper arms. There are some mid blue highlights - a shade becoming known as Allspark blue, on his arms and chest. His head and thighs are actually a dark grey plastic while the mouthplate is painted silver and his eyestrip is black. There's a silver Decepticon logo on his left thigh while some transparent blue is visible on the windows hanging off his shoulders and wrists. The colour scheme is dark although not especially evil. Aesthetically, it works well despite the profusion of dark colours.
The simple transformation allows for a pretty good robot shape, with much of the toy being well proportioned. The arms are quite long - specifically the forearms - because of his punch gimmick, which I'll come back to. There's an oafish feel to this robot mode, thanks to the long arms. His simple face also adds to this feel - Stockade looks like a grunt with the face to match. The windows hanging off his shoulders work as features - shoulderpads of sorts, but those on his wrists are nothing more than kibble.
The poseability here is pretty good, even if the articulation itself is a little limited. His head turns maybe 20° to each side, his shoulders are slightly restricted ball joints. Stockade has two hinges per elbow and his wrists are fixed. His waist turns and the hips are ball jointed, while the knees are hinged. His ankles are hinged while the black heelspurs are on their own hinges, allowing Stockade to stand in a variety of poses. While I would have liked to see a greater use of ball joints here, he does make good use of the joints he does have. Unusually for a smaller toy, Stockade's fingers are also poseable - the second and third digits move as one on a hinge while the fourth and fifth do the same. While the impact of this feature is small, I'm impressed that the designer included it.
The open hands don't hold a gun - he doesn't come with a handheld weapon. Having said that, Stockade's hands _are_ his weapons. There are grey sliders on the outsides of his wrists - as they slide back his fists push out, extending around half an inch for a hyper-punch sort of effect. The forearms are long to allow this mechanism to work, and once you extend the fists his reach is impressive, with a maximum "wingspan" of 26 cm!
The robot mode is good, not quite great but still one that I really like. The colours work well and his bodyshape looks good. The articulation is lacking a little but the play value he does have is fun. Stockade isn't quite up to the level of some of the earlier movie toys here, but he's also lacking the glaring shortcomings of some of them (such as Jazz's messy arms).
VARIATIONS
None that I'm aware of. Gears is a repaint of Stockade.
OVERALL
A good toy with a good vehicle mode and an attractive and fun robot mode, Stockade's link to the film is a little tenuous, but I'm more than happy with his representing the S7 vans. The transformation is simple, but it's still effective and there's minor kibble only in robot mode. The play value is also fairly straightforward, but what he does have is fun enough. While there's nothing about Stockade that really jumps out as fantastic, there's nothing here that's a huge problem either - a solid toy, and one that I'd recommend if you're interested in the sideline movie toys (ie based on vehicles seen in the film - 8/10
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