Thanks to Pulse for donating Tankor & Shockwave for this review
Name: Tankor
Series: Cybertron
Allegiance: Autobot
Alternate Mode: Missile Tank
MISSILE TANK MODE
Height: 3cm Length: 7.5cm Width: 2.5cm
A tan repaint of Armada's Wreckage, Tankor is a missile tank with black painted treads and twin grey missile launchers on top with orange missiles. There's some black camouflage paint on the peanut butter coloured toy, a subtle but welcome addition to the paintmask. There's a Minicon symbol nestled underneath the missile launchers and an Autobot logo stamped on the back - a location where it's not real use in either mode, sadly. There are armoured windows on the front, left unpainted this time. The colours generally work and I like the camouflage but I wish the windows were painted and the Autobot logo was somewhere useful.
There are wheels underneath which roll, although he slides along smoother surfaces. The missile launchers fixed into position, and point upwards at an angle of about 15°. The missiles are pressure activated, and hang out at least 2cm from the back of the launchers. They don't fire as hard as on Wreckage but the gimmick is still nice, and the launcher dominate this mode so I'm glad the gimmick works.
The moulded detail is pretty good. Aside from the links and internal wheels on the treads, he has front mounted lights, rivets, hatches and air vents. All up it's a good tank mode, and the fixed missile launchers don't tend inwards as on my Wreckage toy. I do wish the Autobot logo was placed somewhere else, mind you. I'd rather it not be visible at all in this mode and be prominent in robot mode.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Swing the missile launchers down to the sides, flip the front over to form the legs and stand him up.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 7.5cm Width: 5cm (and almost 2cm of his height is the missiles sticking up)
A peanut butter coloued robot with grey arms and thighs, some black camouflage on his boots while his chest, face and groin are painted white and his eyestrip is green. The facial sculpt is low detail, but the colours define it well, at least. The black treads sit on either side of his torso and this hurts the shape of this robot mode.
The shoulders are ball joints, since they're the attachment points of the missile launchers, which are now his arms. The missile launcher arms are his main feature and also his downfall. There are (flattened) fists moulded on the insides of the arms, but these don't help any. The missile launchers as arms _almost_ works on it's own, except that if you fire a missile he's left with a hollow arm sporting a quasi-claw at the end. With the missile loaded, they don't really look like proper arms, since they're too long.
While Tankor would work pretty well as a walking missile launcher, he looks a bit odd as a robot. It's still a fun robot mode to play with, since he's capable of shooting two (proportionately) huge missiles. I like the colours used here - not only because mask is quite different from Wreckage. The Autobot logo is now on top of the torso block, sadly it's not much use again, but this is s still a decent repaint.
VARIATIONS
As mentioned, he is a repaint of Wreckage of the Land Military Team.
OVERALL
A fairly poor looking robot mode is offset by a fun vehicle mode and great launchers. The paint job here is good, the colours work and there's some thought in it. This was the weakest mould of the Land Military Team, but that was a pretty good set so I don't mind seeing it again - 6/10
Name: Shockwave
Series: Cybertron
Allegiance: Decepticon
Alternate Mode: Spyplane
SPYPLANE MODE
Height: 3cm Length: 8cm Width: 5cm
A charcoal and midnight blue spyplane with some red lines, Shockwave is a repaint of Armada's Terradive. There's a silver Decepticon logo stamped on his port side tailfin. The paintmask is quite different but the colours are fairly similar to those of Terradive, although darker. I guess there's only so many ways you can do a plane that's meant to be black. The end result is a toy that looks surprisingly distinct from Terradive, considering the limitations of colour - so I'm pretty happy with the repaint here. Shockwave is a good spyplane with a dark grey plastic front wheel underneath, which is solid moulded and retractable - although you're not meant to retract it until you transform him, since he'll sag forward otherwise.
While there are some minor blemishes this is a sweet plane overall. A screw and some hinges on top are all that detracts - the colours work, there are plane lines all over and the wings and stabilisers work visually. Two stabilisers moulded onto the sides of the fuselage look especially cool, even if the Blackbird he's so clearly inspired by lacks them.
As you'd probably expect there's no real play value here, but then at this size I can only expect a triple changer plane to look good, and Terradive achieves this. On mine at least, there's some mould degradation around the hinge of the front wheel hinge - it pops off quite easily.
A great little plane that works well as a repaint despite so much in common with the original. The mould is a good once and the dark broody look here works well. Two powerlinx sockets underneath mean Shockwave can attach to larger toys.
WEAPON MODE
Essentially the plane mode with the sides swung up. the end result is a three pronged claw that's meant to be a ranged weapon. It looks more like a melee weapon, and works well if attached to the arm of a larger toy.
TRANSFORMATION TO ROBOT MODE
Fold away the landing gear, fold down the legs and fold all three claw prongs up onto his back. The two side prongs are attached via hinges which cracked very easily on Terradive, so I'd advise being careful.
ROBOT MODE
Height: 8.5cm Width: 5cm
Charcoal with some midnight glue and dark grey - Shockwave is again a dark, broodier, version of Terradive with a similar colour layout. The charcoal dominates while the blue is on the sides of his torso. The blue sides of the nose stick up from behind his head, and contribute 2.5cm of his height while the groin and thighs are dark grey. He has a very angular silver face with triangular red eyes. The face and silver hands are the light part of the toy, but the red eyes still ensure Shockwave looks sinister. There's a red square on his chest which frames the MiniCon logo there really well. A great robot mode, visually, which does a wonderful job of looking evil. The only downside is that it fails to really connect with the reused name.
Shockwave's wings sit on the outsides of his shoulders and his fists are quite cleverly moulded underneath the engines, visible in robot mode but concealed in jet mode. Shockwave's articulation is pretty good - he features jointed shoulders and hips, bending knees and hinged heelspurs. The weight of the jet nose on his back restricts posing somewhat, but the jointing is still nice.
While this robot mode suffers from the kibble on it's back, the aesthetic works and I like the articulation. A nice Minicon mould which, in the past, was too fragile. So if Shockwave holds together, I'll be immensely happy with this robot mode. The repaint is focused and attractive, and while it's not necessarily better or worse than that of Terradive, Shockwave's robot mode still brings something different.
VARIATIONS
As mentioned, he is a repaint of Terradive of the Air Military Team.
OVERALL
The weapon mode is kind of weak, but both Shockwave's robot and jet modes are quite strong. Assuming those hinges don't crack (they haven't so far!) - 8.5/10
PACK OVERALL
Two fun moulds, and while both have flaws, they are moulds I'd recommend if you don't already have them. The peanut butter missile tank and the shadowy spyplane contrast quite well, too. Tankor's name is far too generic but he's still a fun toy and while Shockwave's name is also overused nowadays, his alt mode can break the sound barrier so I'll live with the name. Shockwave's mould has a fragility problem, but the main issue hasn't surfaced on mine, so I'm quite happy with this pair - 7.5/10
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