Combiners, HeadMasters and PowerMasters were all prime examples of this, as Hasbro's more recent reboots of the concepts have clearly proven: components of each gestalt have had reasonable vehicle modes and fully articulated robot modes, while the gestalts themselves are also fully articulated. HeadMasters and PowerMasters may have been boiled down to a single core concept for Titans Return, but each has delivered fully articulated 'bots in five different size classes, with varying degrees of compatibility with the mini-figures.
Power of the Primes has not only developed the Titan Masters concept further, but reintroduced another old G1 concept... Starting with the Duocon Battletrap.
I'd considered splitting this into three separate posts - Battleslash, Roadtrap and finally Battletrap... but I figured that'd just take me too long to complete... So here's the full set, all in one!
Battleslash
Vehicle Mode:
Helicopters are often not the best choice of vehicle mode for TransFormers toys, as things like the tail - and, often, the entire rotor section - end up just hanging off a spindly, awkward robot mode. Battleslash sort of gets around this by borrowing aspects of the G1 version and going a sort of Super Deformed route. Thus, he's a (mostly) grey helicopter, still somewhat based on the AH-64 Apache, but with a dinky cockpit atop a super-chubby body, and one of the most awkward tails I've ever seen on a TransFormers chopper. The grey parts of the wings are slightly extended by chunky black wings that plug in below them, and the array of cameras and weapons on the front is replaced by... a gaping square hole.
Where this scores far more highly than the original G1 toy is that the cockpit windows are fully painted in a nice not-quite-metallic cyan, and there are incidental blobs of red, metallic purple and blue on some of the molded details. Where it falls down, it's down to the gappiness of the back end (which offers a full view through the rotor/engine assembly and the insides of the robot's groin and thighs) and the poor handling of the tip of the tail (where the robot's feet are clearly visible just before the tail ends very abruptly in the stumpiest, most perfunctory stabiliser I've ever seen)... but, hey, the G1 version didn't even have a stabiliser, so that's technically still a step up. Also right at the back is a notch and a pair of pegs to facilitate the installation of a Prime Master in its 'spark' mode, though this looks terrible and gets in the way of the rotors' spinning. This also works for Titan Masters, but it looks even more weird to have a robot's head sticking up at the back of the chopper.
When Battleslash is unencumbered with a Prime Master, his rotors spin fairly freely, but are mounted very close to the body of the chopper, so if the engines or the cockpit aren't properly aligned, they can clash quite easily.
The obvious omission here is weaponry... Battleslash is depicted in the card art as wielding a sword, possibly made out of one of his rotor blades, but both are joined and plugged directly into the back of one of the robot's hands. The square hole at front looks as though it could have accommodated a gun of some kind, but no such accessory was created.
Robot Mode:
Something about Battleslash's robot mode strikes me as very Mini-Con-like... in fact, the wide-set legs and stubby arms remind me a lot of Windshear from the Generations Mini-Con Assault Team set, which also combined into a single, larger robot. Even the circular details on his chest seem like they could be Mini-Con/Powerlinx port references. In another way, his awkward proportions - the super-wide torso set atop a narrow groin wedged between enormous thighs - makes him look as if he might already be composed of two different robots.
From the sides and back, Battleslash starts looking faintly ridiculous, with an awkward, nondescript chunk of vehicle mode as a butt-flap. If it weren't for that, I'd have said he'd have looked better using the fully-painted helicopter cockpit as his chest, but obviously that's reserved for the combined mode. The actual chest is a fairly flat grey plastic plate with a few boxy details molded in, along with the aforementioned Powerlinx-like details, but the only paintwork is the dark metallic purple strips. All the limbs are similarly simplistic, with the upper arms and lower legs being very boxy while the forearms and thighs have a bit more shape to them - the latter featuring a sort of armoured 'skirt' detailing. Paintwork is at an absolute minimum here, with blobs of metallic purple on the outsides of the arms and blue on the feet. Inner or rear surfaces of all the limb parts are full of ugly gaps, but that's about par for the course with figures of this size these days. The outer sides of the legs feature large, ugly flaps of helicopter tail, but that's just another symptom of his Mini-Con-style design.
As mentioned above, Battleslash is not packaged with any weapons, but he does have the standard 5mm grip in both fists, and the rotor blades are attached to the back of his right fist so they could, potentially, represent both a weapon and a shield. I think Hasbro missed a trick by which they could have given both Battleslash and Roadtrap the same weapon, configured to plug together to form G1 Battletrap's shoulder-mounted 'assault missile launcher'. Battleslash has no visible means of interacting with Prime Masters in this form, as the parts that allowed it in vehicle mode - the legs - are now too far apart.
The head seems disproportionately small, even on so stubby a body as this. It's a fairly nondescript, grey-helmeted affair with a pair of beady red eyes peeking out of the silver-painted, very humanoid face. It features a fairly neutral expression, too - a far cry from what's depicted on the packaging. This sort of face never really works for me, adding to the disappointment of the individual robot mode here, and the fact that even the head has gaping holes in the back makes it look cheap.
Battleslash's transformation feel over-complicated for his size class... Not only do the legs swing round from the back of the chopper to connect in the space formerly occupied by the vehicle's nose for robot mode, but the arms transform via a dual hinge from the chest and with the forearms folding in between the upper arms to form the central rotor section, which then attaches to the legs/tail by a fairly large tab on one side. It's all nice and secure, but everything has to be done in a specific order, or various parts end up clashing. This is particularly true if the arms and their various transformation joints, which have to work around the legs/tail and the cockpit shell. It's not difficult, by a long shot, just excessively fiddly for something that still leaves so many gaps in vehicle mode.
All of Battleslash's articulation is handled - unsurprisingly - by ball joints which, for the most part, afford a predictably average range of motion. The legs have exactly the range one would expect, with their stability in posing restricted by the awkwardly small, fixed feet and the short heel spur on the inside of each foot. The arms are unusual in that, due to transformation, the balls joints are facing forward rather than out to the sides, so the arms cannot be swung backward. In every other respect, they have good range, and the reason for the limitation is obvious - and somewhat forgivable - on a figure this size that also forms part of a larger robot.
Both his vehicle mode and his robot mode could have made a bit more streamlined, but for the whole 'Duocon' concept and the fact that Battleslash ultimately only exists to form the top of Battletrap. For what he is, Battleslash isn't terrible - a bit more sculpted detail and paintwork would have helped, and he's not great as a standalone figure, but he's the first sign that Power of the Primes' take on Battletrap is a significant improvement on the spring-loaded original.
Roadtrap
Vehicle Mode:
About the front half of this vehicle is effectively a direct copy of the look of the G1 original, just with additional molded detail and paintwork taking the place of the original's stickers. This SUV mode features clearly defined headlights painted yellow, a grille and bumper painted silver and a very wide sculpted winch detail. The raised section of the bonnet features a recessed area which I'm taking to be a reference to the cut-out area of the G1 toy where a rubsign was placed. All three of the windows are painted a very dense, almost fluorescent red/pink, again taking after the G1 toy's stickers, but without their bold black border. All fairly basic stuff, but about typical for a Legends class car these days. For the back half, however, the element of 'disguise' is lost entirely. The black bar on top could, I guess, be taken to be a lightbar of some kind, but everything behind that is very clearly not of any terrestrial vehicle design, nor is it even intended to resemble it.
What's worse is that the paint job on the 'roof' is so clearly in service of the robot mode - stripy, dotty patterns on either side of what could be generously described as somewhat resembling a spoiler, dashes of yellow just behind the 'lightbar' and touches of silver right at the back - that this looks like one of the worst kind of Legends class toys, and reminds me a little of the Legends class movie Jazz which, unable to transform in the necessary way, resorted to having a very conspicuous duplicate of the front of the car on its roof.
The very back of the car basically adds insult to injury, with the combined robot's hips sticking out the rear, and his groin folded up and pegged in just below, with Roadtrap's head quite visible just inside - possibly the most inelegant solution to that particular aspect of his design. I've seen YouTube videos of people unpegging the hips from the back of the roof and thus folding them down out of sight, but that leaves the whole thing prone to splitting open down the length of the vehicle, as the tabs running down the length of the roof just aren't sufficient to hold it together.
Another feature of the roof is the tell-tale notch and pair of tabs that tells you it's possible to plug in a Prime Master in its 'spark' mode. Of course, this just ends up looking like weird, alien luggage on an overdesigned roof rack, but it's a play feature... What he doesn't have, just like his partner, is any kind of weapon... though, unlike Battleslash, aside from the Prime Master tabs, he also has no means of attaching a weapon in this mode.
Robot Mode:
Strangely, Roadtrap on his own has much the same weird, dumpy proportions as G1 Battletrap, just without the variation in colour. In robot mode, the 'ornate' roof makes perfect sense, with the lines-and-dots across the robot's chest, yellow on the abs, and a black 'belt' above the hips. It's odd but, given the intrusiveness of the paintwork on vehicle mode and the fact that so little of it actually supplements the molded detail in robot mode, I think I might have been happier with a plainer, simpler chest for Roadtrap - the white dots-and-lines 'tattoos' really don't enhance his chest in any way (black may have been a better choice of colour), and the yellow on his belly seems incongruous given that the only other usage of that colour is on his vehicle mode headlights.
His arms seem overly long, particularly the upper arms, both of which has to accommodate one of the vehicle mode's wheels. The elbow ball joint then seems to end up halfway up the forearm. The legs, meanwhile, start out alright - good, chunky thighs - but I'm not sure the vehicle mode cab really counts as enough of a lower leg, so he seems to have massive feet made up of the compressed front of his vehicle mode, but no knees.
One huge disadvantage Roadtrap has over his partner is that he looks a complete disaster from the back - not only is he largely hollow inside his feet and the back of his head, but his entire back reveals the inner workings of his alternate mode as Battletrap's legs, not least the fact that his head is very clearly mounted on the combined robot's groin.
As with Battleslash, Roadtrap's hands are designed to accommodate 5mm peg weapons but, since he doesn't actually come with a weapon, it feels a bit redundant. On the upside, his hands are a bit more defined than those of his partner, thanks equally to the black paint and the fact that they aren't on parts that serve a dual purpose.
The head sculpt is odd, in that it looks mostly like the rounded-topped thing shown in the artwork, but has a couple of blocky antennae added on the sides. These are present solely to facilitate the combined mode but, to be honest, I think the head looks better for having them. The angled forehead gives a malevolent look to an otherwise impassive, battlemasked face, albeit one with an implied 'nose' and a chin/mouth block. Roadtrap's head is slightly better-proportioned than Battleslash's, and features a bit more molded detail on the forehead and central crest, the end result actually being somewhat reminiscent of G1 Flywheels' head. My only gripe about this one is that the paintwork is a bit sloppy - the red paint doesn't entirely fill the sculpted visor area, leaving patches of silver visible above the battlemask.
Transformation of this component is pretty frustrating due to Roadtrap's propensity for splitting apart at the torso. The only thing really holding him together in either mode is the pair of tabs in the slot at his collar as, after a few transformations, the tabs across his chest/roof become largely ineffectual. The transformation joint at the ankle is surprisingly stiff, to the point that it feels dangerously close to breaking when it finally moves. The biggest problem with this figure's vehicle mode is the way the combined robot's hips and groin stick out the back unless you're willing to sacrifice structural integrity for a minuscule improvement to the look of the SUV.
I'm not sure if I think Roadtrap is better articulated than Battleslash. They have essentially the same number of joints intended for posing, with all of the same being ball joints. Roadtrap's shoulders are mounted in the traditional way - facing out to the sides - but their backward movement is still impeded, albeit here by the transformation hinge rather than the arrangement of the joint: raise his arms out slightly, and they will swing back very slightly. The legs are just plain weird, looking very much as though there's no knee - just a hip and an ankle, with an oversized foot - due to the use of the vehicle's windows as the 'shins'. Overall, it may be that he's not 'better' articulated, just more traditionally articulated, and the fact that he's so reminiscent of a super-articulated G1 Mini Autobot makes me predisposed to find him more impressive and poseable than Battleslash.
Of the two, I think Roadtrap is the better toy except for his lack of structural integrity but, again, my feelings may be coloured by nostalgia. They could easily rework him to create a new Throttlebot Rollbar. What really lets this set down - aside from the simple fact that they're not actually packaged as a set - is the lack of decent Prime Master interaction and the absence of weapons. As individual Legends class figures, I think they're both pretty terrible, and it's only the Duocon combination gimmick that makes then both a worthy purchase... if a little expensive, even for a contemporary Deluxe, depending on where you pick them up.
The first and most important thing to remember about Battleslash and Roadtrap is that they are each half of an update to G1 Battletrap, who consisted of two vehicle components - without robot modes of their own - which combined into a single, weirdly-proportioned robot with zero articulation and a shoulder-mounted missile launcher. What Hasbro has done with the two vehicle components may not have resulted in particularly great individual robot modes, but they're adequate in the context of being newly-invented characters who are really just parts of a Deluxe class combiner.
Without further ado, though, let's get on to the main event:
Battletrap
Combined Mode:
Whereas with the G1 toy, the helicopter basically just plugged into the roof of the SUV, triggering an early form of Automorph whereby the back of the SUV accordioned upward and the helicopter broke up and wrapped around the extended section, Power of the Primes Battletrap is formed by manually part-transforming both vehicles and then plugging Roadtrap's head into the orifice on the front of Battleslash's vehicle mode. Thus, Battleslash becomes the entire upper body, and Roadtrap becomes everything below the waist.
Overall, I kind of feel they made him too tall and skinny but, given the construction of the components, any adjustment to their proportions for the sake of combined mode would have made their individual robot modes even more awkward. Battleslash makes for a very impressive upper body, with the traditional cockpit-chest and his legs becoming surprisingly effective arms (albiet with shiv-like grey protrusions just in front of his thumbs) and the gestalt's head coming out of the helicopter cockpit. The halves of the stabiliser rotor are less intrusive on his wrists than they were on Battleslash's ankles. Roadtrap, meanwhile, makes for a pair of very busy legs due to his overly complicated chest, which splits apart and becomes the gestalt's shins. Looking at the insides of his legs, he appears to be wearing heavily armoured fishing waders.
Again, I feel compelled to bemoan the lack of weapons included with either component, as the slot on either shoulder seems ideal for attaching a double-barrelled missile launcher without impinging on that shoulder's range of motion. Even something hand-held would be nice, but an equivalent to his G1 weapon would certainly be preferable. I've seen a couple of Third Party solutions available, which I may look into at some point, but neither seem quite right, somehow...
The head sculpt is nigh on perfect, my only reservations being that the face seems too narrow within the helmet - the sides should have been slimmed down a fraction to accommodate a wider face - and the face below the visor is, for no obvious reason, painted cyan rather than silver. That said, on the G1 version, the only part painted was the silver visor, so this is still something of an upgrade. Aside from the proportions, it's an excellent update of the G1 character's head... perhaps a little small for the body, but that's about par for the course with TransFormers toys.
Using Battleslash's legs as arms gives Battletrap nicely ball-jointed shoulders and elbows, though the ball joints are sadly tighter than the fit of the peg that's meant to keep his shoulders in place on one side of mine, so the right shoulder tends to swing up on its transformation hinge rather than on the intended joint. One thing I find reasonably impressive is the way the rotor blades are stashed, almost out of the way, by folding the forearms in such a way that the rotors are between Battleslash's arms on Battletrap's back. It may not be perfectly elegant, but it's better than the usual methods of dealing with redundant helicopter parts, and means they're never getting in the way of Battletrap's arms or legs. The waist - using Roadtrap's neck as a point of articulation - moves perhaps a little too freely, while his hips, and thigh rotation are a little awkward, and I can never seem to find quite the right position for a decent stance. The knees and ankles are perhaps even more troublesome - the former being Roadtrap's hips means that they're ball joints, but mounted sideways, so the lower legs are more inclined to move independently of the shin armour. The latter are the same ball joints as Roadtrap's knee-ankles, with all the same limitations further hindered by the presence of Roadtrap's arms in their vehicle mode configuration. In fact, the knees seem to offer more range of ankle tilt than the ankle joints. While having the heel spurs on the insides of Roadtrap's feet didn't hinder his posing a great deal, they seem to be more awkward for the gestalt, particularly with so little range of motion at the ankle... he ends up relying on those thin slivers of plastic on the insides of his feet for all his stability. That said, with careful posing, he still manages to be able to stand on one foot.
Battletrap very much came out of left field - he didn't appear in any leaked previews of Power of the Primes toys, but suddenly and stealthily appeared in both online and bricks-and-mortar shops. I ended up acquiring the pair at Orbital Comics in town, when their second batch of stock came in and, aside from the inclusion of weapons, the only way I can see to have improved upon them is by releasing them as a set rather than as two individual Legends class figures. Obviously, it's highly unlikely that anyone would buy one and not the other, thus creating an imbalance on the shelves, but two robots so clearly created as and intended to be a pair really should have been made available as such.
Nevertheless, as an unexpected remake of an underwheming G1 toy - which, for most fans, I'd imagine was barely considered a possibility, despite Hasbro's continued re-hashing of the later parts of Generation 1 as Titans Return gives way to Power of the Primes - Battletrap transcends not only its own limitations, but those of its components as well... Except, perhaps, the lack of weapons. I had a soft spot for the daft original but, even without the nostalgia factor, this pair of Legends class toys that combine to create the equivalent of a Deluxe class robot are a lot of fun to play about with, and far superior to the RID2015/Combiner Force 'Crash Combiners', which are essentially the same concept, but without the articulation.
Of course, now we have Battletrap, one has to wonder if Hasbro are secretly developing Flywheels as well... I, for one, certainly hope they are!
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