SANDSTORM
Series - Generations
Sub-line - Legacy
Size/class - Deluxe
New/remould/redeco - Pretool of Kingdom Scorponok
Wave - N/A (US store exclusive)
Released here - April 2022
Approximate Retail Price - $36
Approximate Size - 12cm to head, 16cm to tail tip
Allegiance - Predacon
Alt-mode - scorpion
Main Features/Gimmicks - compatible with Weaponisers/Fossilisers
Main Colours - beige, orange
Main Accessories - Cyberbee missile, conjoined twin missile

Note: As this toy is a repaint/retool of Kingdom Scorponok, refer to the review thread for Kingdom Scorponok for comments about the original toy. This thread will focus on changes made.









Thoughts
  • Predictably as a repaint/retool, this toy inherits the same issues as Kingdom Scorponok, which I consider to be among the weaker Kingdom toys.

  • The airbrushed application of two different shades of beige on the top of the scorpion mode's back is really nicely done.

  • The scorpion legs and tail stinger are purple instead of metallic brown and airbrushed orange/brown like on the original toy. Objectively speaking there's nothing wrong with this... it's not as if the rest of the toy's colour scheme is realistic to an actual scorpion anyway, but it might be an issue for those who would prefer a more source-accurate colour scheme. The robot mode's eyes are also red instead of green. I can understand the stinger and scorpion legs being the same colour, as they would've been gang moulded on the same sprue (given that these parts are all red on Scorponok).

  • I really like how Sandstorm features the mutant version of the robot mode head; it helps to make the toy look more distinctive from Kingdom Scorponok, plus it's a reference to how the original toys had two different robot heads. It's been an ongoing trend since Kingdom with Cheetor/Shadow Panther, Tigatron/Mutie Tigatron etc. etc.; and I really liked how they did it with those toys. I'm just really love how this is becoming a standard in CHUG now.


Overall
A really nice repaint of what is a pretty weak toy design. As such, I can only mildly recommend this if you just really want a CHUG BW Sandstorm... otherwise you might as well just hang onto your Kingdom Scorponok.