Name: Sling
Series: Beast Wars Neo
Allegiance: Destron
Function: Shock Trooper
Alternate Mode: Dimetrodon
DIMETRODON MODE
Height: 7cm Length: 15cm Width: 5.5cm
An olive green dimetrodon with extensive grey paint markings on the back and sail, Sling has a fair bit of yellow plastic peeking through, around the front shoulders and underneath the body of the beast. Rounding out the colours are small beady red eyes. I should point out that dimetrodons were lizard-like reptiles with giant, bony sails on their backs, and were contemporaries with the dinosaurs, although not dinosaurs themselves.
Sling's skin is well sculpted, with scales on the head an wrinkles on the body. There are veins on the sail, which makes sense since it would be skin over a boney plate. The jaws have unpainted teeth and there are moulded toes on his feet. The legs are moulded into a walking pose, with the left side legs contracted and the right side stretched, which is consistent with the gait of a four legged reptile.
The legs are all on ball joints, but there's no real play value with the moulded pose (he's laying on undercarriage junk anyway). The jaw opens and shuts and there's a "trap" gimmick in the sail. The two sides can fold down and snap into place creating a flat, roughly hexagonal plate. This plate is painted yellow with extensive red in the middle and there's a gold button in the middle - pressing it releases springs causing the sides to fly up and clamp onto the unfortunate Cybertron who steps on Sling (or your finger, which will fare well). While it's a silly concept, it's very well executed and is a lot of fun.
I would have liked some meaningful leg movement on this toy, and I really don't like how the beast head is held in place on by by joint tightness - there's a single ball joint at the bottom of the neck and nothing - not even a notch - at the top. It wouldn't have been difficult at all to engineer a catch at the top, and while mine is tight enough that there are no problems, it's a pretty obvious flaw that shouldn't have manifested itself.
While there are some disappointing aspects to this beast mode, I think it's still pretty decent. The choice of beast mode is something different, the sculpt is quite good and while the gold plastic doesn't quite work, the sail with built in gimmick works well. Some more leg movement would have been nice, but at a basic level this beast mode is pretty ambitious and comes off well overall.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
More or less a case of unfolding the toy, but Sling's transformation is still fairly involved for a basic. I'm not going to go through every step since it's hard to describe this asymmetrical transformation. The back splits and becomes the arms, with the sail ending up on the left arm and the tail on the right arm. The head becomes a chestplate while the robot head and legs come out from underneath. The forelimbs end up on his back while the rear limbs hang off the tail.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 11cm Width: 12cm
The width of the robot mode is taken with Sling's arms by his sides - the kibble on the arms adds a _lot_ of width. Much of this robot mode is yellow, the feet and head are the only dedicated robot pieces that are green. The arm kibble and chestplate are also green, his face is silver with red eyes (and a toothed scowl on his face). The colours are okay, although the extensive yellow on the body and limbs looks a little weird, since the green is all on the edges.
The body itself is quite thin and slight, which makes sense really - it has to hide underneath the dimetrodon mode. The bulk is provided by the chestplate, sail and tail. The sail looks pretty good mounted on the outside of the left forearm while the tail on his right arm is pretty obviously just kibble - although at least it doesn't cause any stability issues thanks to the counterweight. It's also reasonable well placed as useless beast kibble goes. Ok, that doesn't say much, but there's an extra transformation joint to allow it to mount rather than hang, which is nice.
The legs, groin and arms are all fairly well sculpted but in yellow there's not all that much point. Most of the finer detail is provided by the beast parts visible, the rest is on his face. The head has a sort of helmet, the unpainted green part and a crest on top, giving him a roman soldier kind of look.
This is a very poseable robot mode and I'm happy to report that Sling's kibble doesn't get in the way of articulation. The neck, shoulders, elbows, knees, hips and ankles are all ball joints while the waste rotates. It's hard to ask more of a basic, really. The feet are big enough for a lot of stable poses, and the leg joints are tight enough. Adding to the play value, the sail opens up, the halves now form a rather impressive shield. The tail on his other forearm forms a sort of melee weapon - a club if you will, although it's nowhere near as cool as the shield.
This is Sling's better mode, despite the awkward colour map and kibbly tail on one forearm. The play value is great, the shield looks great and poseability excellent. The colours don't bother me all that much, the tail is more of an issue really. Despite his visual flaws this is a good robot mode for display, even better for play.
VARIATIONS
None that I'm aware of. Sling was sold in Japan either on his own or in a two pack with Stampy. Universe Sludge is a repaint of Sling.
OVERALL
While there are some notable flaws, Sling has an interesting beast mode - he remains the only Transformer dimetrodon, and the trap feature is a lot of fun. The robot mode has oodles of play value for a basic and displays quite well, so I recommend Sling if you can find him for a reasonable price. Definitely recommended if you like the BW Neo line - 7.5/10
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