Beast Wars Tripredacus

If I'd had any foresight whatsoever, I would have written up and scheduled this set months ago rather than trying (and, naturally, failing) to squeeze it in before the end of the last ever BotCon organised by Fun Publications. I mean, the whole theme of their last ever boxed set is the Tripredacus Council, and these guys are it, only substantially less red than the Club's interpretation. Annoyingly, though, it only occurred to me that I had this set on my shelves on the 9th and, of course, I hadn't already taken photos...

In retrospect, I couldn't even say why I picked up this set - when I saw them (at AutoAssembly, I think... second hand an in plastic bags, most likely) there must have been a moment of madness, or I simply wanted to know what the combined form looked like. Certainly, back when I bought them, I wasn't aware of the Tripredacus Council from Beast Wars, nor was I especially keen on expanding my collection of Beast Wars toys.

But, hey, I've got it, so let's take a look at the toys that (sort of) inspired BotCon's swan song, the 2016 boxed set, Dawn of the Predacus...

Beast Wars Airazor

(Femme-Bot Friday #2)

After Arcee in the 1986 animate movie, the TransFormers franchise suffered something of a dearth of Femme-Bots until Beast Wars, when suddenly we had two in one continuity (though admittedly Airazor was... shall we say 'gender-fluid' in the Japanese version, appearing as both male and female across the various sub-continuities). Airazor was one of my favourite characters in the TV series, being a strong female character who developed an understated romance with Tigatron. Blackarachnia was cool and all, but rather more of a Femme Fatale stereotype.

Since, as I've mentioned, I was rather late to the game with Beast Wars, finding some of the toys became an epic quest and, for absolutely ages, Airazor was ridiculously expensive for what would amount to a Scout class figure these days. Aside from the recent Generations reboots, I suspect Airazor was one of my final Beast Wars purchases... So was she worth the wait?