Review 10-003 - TF2 Bludgeon

[SilverDragon]

I have it and I must say that I'm not that impressed - you can tell his design predates that of most of the movies figures.

According to the TF Wiki, Don Figueroa came up with the initial design around the time of the Unicron Trilogy, although he wasn't involved with it after that.

I have a weakness for robots wielding swords, so Bludgeon will find his way into my collection one day or another. Maybe even this week if I find him.

[GoktimusPrime]

Perhaps we're also looking at a generation gap here? I think a big thing about ROTF Bludgeon that appeals to those of us who grew up with G1 is that this is the first Bludgeon toy that not only is an 'update' of the old G1 toy, but also comes with swords -- the sword being Bludgeon's weapon of choice constantly throughout G1 canon, but the original toy never had it. So I guess if you didn't grow up with that then maybe this toy may not hold that same meaning -- that's not to say the toy has no appeal to younger fans, but I think the appeal may be different. Just my speculation.

the barrel of the gun (ie sword handle) is bent aswell

Yeah, I really don't like the soft material that the swords are made of. It's my biggest complaint about this toy. Even if it doesn't bend, Bludgeon's fingers dig into the handles each time he holds it -- and when you're playing with the toy, the fingers move about as they're dug into the handles, which then leaves ugly and permanent dents all along the handle. This of course means that in tank mode the barrel tip is pock-marked with those dents.

Re the design, I meant insofar as his torso is essentially a solid chunk of plastic,

Considering that the torso is:
1: looks like Samurai-esque armour and nothing like tank armour
2: is predominantly orange not green
...it's hard to incorporate any of that into the alt mode. But again, if you compare this with say a lot of Star Wars/Crossover Transformers which work along the same principle (e.g. Luke Skywalker/X-Wing, Commander Cody/Turbo Tank etc.), I think Bludgeon's fairly well designed. The other alternative would be to incorporate more alt mode parts into the torso (like with say movie Wreckage) -- or heck, have the toy look more like G1 Bludgeon's ROBOT (rather than his outer Pretender shell)... but clearly the design was based on having the robot look like the Pretender shell with the green tank alt mode.

Generally I'm not a fan of "forcing" robot modes to look like characters like Jedi, Superheroes etc., but in the case of Bludgeon I'm more forgiving since the character in question is a G1 Transformer. But this is probably my childhood G1 bias kicking in. ;p

and his head is larger proportionally than most of the other movie and ROTF voyagers - it looks like a Unicron trilogy/Classics toy, which isn't a look that I'm particularly a fan of.

It does make it look out of place amongst movie toys, I agree. In fact, I wish they'd just engineered this toy as a Classics/Universe mould instead of fitting it with ROTF. I know some collectors have repurposed the toy for Classics, but there's a lot of design elements that are movie-esque. Aesthetically it's like a hybrid I suppose, but officially HasTak have classified it as movieverse. It looks too movie-like to fit into Classics in my eyes.

Poor Bludgeon, too crazy for boystown but too much of a boy for crazytown.

I like the larger helmet though because it does make it look more samurai like. The G1 helmet was too small (in my fan art I always enlarged the kabuto)

[kurdt_the_goat]

I got mine today after my longest hunt since the great search for an original BB'08! Either he's really shortpacked in Perth at the moment, or he's really popular (or both!).

I think it's an excellent figure, rounding off a pretty much flawless run of Decepticon ROTF Voyagers (forget about Demolisher)

I also quickly (10 mins) did the leg mod i linked earlier in this thread .. and will link it again cause i highly recommend it. It makes for a much cleaner tank, with only one light grey wheel out of place (that could be easily painted)