Name: Bludgeon
Series: Universe (sort of - the packaging reads "Robots In Disguise", but he was sold during the Universe era)
Allegiance: Decepticon
Alternate Mode: Tank
Thanks to Tiby for loaning me Bludgeon for this review.
TANK MODE
Height: 8cm Length: 14cm Width: 7cm
A yellow tank with some turquoise, silver and white painted details, Bludgeon has turquoise and black on his cannon and black treads. He has a turquoise pneumatic pump on top, also. There are purple Decepticon logos stamped onto either side of the turret and one underneath the front end of the tank, and some chrome silver tank on the tread wheels. He's a repaint of Combat Hero Megatron in colours that very vaguely tribute those of the G1 Pretender of the same name - but the semblance is passing at best. The colours aren't especially realistic, either, and while they work okay visually, this repaint just makes no sense.
There's a hole atop the tank for you to mount the handgun. I'm not really sure why. It's a tank anyway, and you can attach a total of two big missiles as well. The handgun doesn't add much. The missiles are black with silver rubberised tips, one attaches to the turret and the both can slot into retractable brackets on top of the tank. There are wheels underneath the treads. The turrent doesn't swivel, since it breaks apart to become the arms. The turret is looser than on Combat Hero Megatron, and doesn't hold together very well. By pressing on the pump, you can fire a missile attached to the cannon, although this doesn't work all that well.
While the mould has merit, Bludgeon is quite loose and the colours just don't make much sense. The tribute is mainly based on the fact that this is a tank - this toy doesn't look much like the Pretender, while yellow and turquoise aren't the most likely combination of colours for a tan.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Fold down the sides to form the arms, Lift out the pump, slide the missile launcher to the right, flip out the head. Reattach the pump to the missile launcher. Fold down the back to form the legs, fold out the lower legs. Swing down the arms. Position the arms, legs, give him his handgun and missiles if you desire.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 19cm Width: 11cm
A largely yellow robot mode, but with the addition of silver (head, forearms, thighs, groin). There's also the turquoise missile launcher, now on his shoulder, and some turquoise painted here and there. The face is painted a glossy silver with red eyes and a fairly detailed sculpt. The Decepticon logo underneath the front is now on his chest. Again the colours are really not Bludgeon - he has a fairly strong semblance to Weirdwolf, actually - and the buckethead is very much Megatron.
The head turns, the elbows, shoulders and hips have two joints each and the knees are jointed. Despite not having any ball and socket joints, it's a very poseable toy. Of course, with a giant missile launcher on his right shoulder, he'd probably only ever turn his head to the left. He has a slight tendency to overbalance and fall backwards, but it's not too bad.
He can store the missiles on the brackets, now on his arms, if you like. They're rather large and look somewhat strange, but at least you have the option. Combine this with the missile launcher itself and poseability, Bludgeon has decent play value here.
Overall it's a fairly blocky figure, but it's also one of the first G2 figures with a concerted effort toward poseability. The Megatron head ruins any chance of this looking like Bludgeon - the repaint again works aesthetically - but again it fails to justify its existence.
VARIATIONS
None that I'm aware of.
OVERALL
Back in 1994 this mould was cutting edge, and while it was done in typical G2 colours, it was quite fun. By 2003 this mould was nothing special, and while I wont condemn it for that, with such a weak tribute and a colour scheme that makes little sense, Bludgeon was a very uninspiring repaint. The mould is still nice, but is the only interesting facet of this toy. If you're collecting G2 moulds, you're probably more likely to want Combat Hero Megatron anyway - and while those colours were garish in a G2 way I'd still recommend that toy first simply because the head is all Megatron. A forgettable repaint of a good toy - 5/10.
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