Toy Review - TLK Steelbane

STEELBANE
Allegiance - Autobot
Sub-Group - Knight of Iacon
Series - The Last Knight
Sub-line – Premier Edition
Size/class - Deluxe
Released here - Yes
Approximate Retail Price - $29
Approximate Size – 13cm
Alt-mode – Winged alpaca
Main Colour – Tan grey
Main Accessories – Sword

http://i1028.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9cv6aua1.jpg

Robot Mode

http://i1028.photobucket.com/albums/...psrdy1aiaw.jpg

I am quite impressed with the look of Steelbane in robot mode – perhaps the most knight-esque Transformer I’ve ever seen! However the look of this toy is the best thing about him. The shoulder and leg balljoints are very loose, making him very hard to pose. This is made up for somewhat by the fact he has tight neck and elbow joints so you can at least give him the odd cool pose. Comes with a sword with lots of little detail on it and the wings folded behind serve to give him a look as though he is wearing a chainmail cape. So visually he looks great, playwise he is a bit of a letdown.

Dragon Mode

http://i1028.photobucket.com/albums/...pshdwjdqia.jpg

Frankly pretty crap. The loose balljoints make him even harder to pose in beast mode than robot mode. The chest does not sit flush with the main body and while I appreciate the little detail of the red tongue, it actually detracts from the dragons head when you open the mouth wider. I found the transformation to beast mode quite fiddly as well; his secondary mode is so ill defined and the instructions were not particularly useful. I ended up just looking at the back of the box and fiddling with the figure until he represented that pic.


Overall
If you are after getting figures of all the new characters from TF5 then pick him up, but that would be the only reason as besides a visually nice robot mode there is little to recommend this figure.

For more detail about STEELBANE, along with the likes of COGMAN and SQWEEKS, check out my blog here!

http://i1028.photobucket.com/albums/...psdwkp28to.jpg

M-Bot: “POTP voyager Starscream was the worst TF I bought this year, by a long margin.”

TLK Steelbane: “Hold my beer...”

(At least it was very inexpensive from Big W)

I like Steelbane!!!!!

Radical thinking i know, but he only has 1 issue and that is his front legs/wings. They mucked that bit up. Ignore that engineering fail and everything else is pretty decent for a deluxe. Mine tabs in everywhere perfectly. He has great sculpting, fantastic articulation and I would say he is very close to being as good as Cogman.

I know I am crazy, but do YOU know you are crazy?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Deonasis

I like Steelbane!!!!!

Radical thinking i know, but he only has 1 issue and that is his front legs/wings. They mucked that bit up. Ignore that engineering fail and everything else is pretty decent for a deluxe. Mine tabs in everywhere perfectly. He has great sculpting, fantastic articulation and I would say he is very close to being as good as Cogman.

I know I am crazy, but do YOU know you are crazy?

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YOU ARE WRONG!!!! FIGHT ME!!!!:p;):D

All good, probably just not my cup of tea. Mines a bit floppy and the dragon mode is pretty poorly proportioned. I like that he can stretch his wings out for “flying mode” as well as a 4-legged alt mode with the wings folded, but mine doesn’t quite hold together like yours would seem to, and he won’t stand with his wings out.

The bot mode looks pretty good. The paint apps aren’t great, but at least there are paint apps.

In the end, even though Steelbane had a good shot at it, POTP Screamer still remains my worst for the year. I have virtually nothing positive to say about that one.

I have the TRU release of this guy, and he was a bit of a mess. I was happy to drop a tenner on this on e though, given the few moulds we got of knights I feel like a couple different colour schemes will go well on the display.

He's not floppy as such but he's not a solid toy in any way.

Bought this away with me as I figured with the Big W price I wasn’t getting what I paid back on it so I may as well open it.

Robot mode looks good. Does the “knight” mode better than any of the AOE Dinobots. Nicely detailed. Wings/dragon front legs don’t seem to lock into any place though.

Beast mode is poor. I am not convinced I’ve managed to get it right as it feels like a few more things should peg together. The tail seems incomplete for instance. I was convinced the back feet were misassembled as it looks like they should be the other way around. Kinda like the dragon walking with its wings as front legs in theory but the toy doesn’t quite pull it off.

Ha! If this toy's alt. mode is a an attempt at a reptilian version of a laughing donkey then even that is a fail.