Toy Review - Robots in Diguise 2015 Warrior - Decepticon Fracture

[Firestorm]

Decepticon Fracture
Series - Robots In Disguise
Sub-line - N/A
Size/class - Warrior
New/remould/redeco - New
Wave - 5
Released here - NOV2015
Approximate Retail Price - AU$29
Approximate Size - 13cm
Allegiance - Decepticon
Alt-mode - Motorcycle
Main Features/Gimmicks - insignia can be scanned for mobile device game app
Main Colours - Purple, Black, Silver
Main Accessories - Rifle

Intro



So here we have Fracture, one of the major reoccurring villains of RID2015's first season, finally getting a warrior class figure in the first wave of 2016 figures. and FINALLY a new Decepticon in the warrior class. lets take a look at what the master bounty hunter, and minicon owner is like as a toy

Robot Mode



fracture's robot mode, while somewhat skinny and lanky. Is a quite faithful representation of his show model. looking sleek, powerful and undeniably evil. with spiky shoulders, feet, knees and that Mohawk like head crest. none of which are made of soft rubber, much to my surprise. the only major departures from his show model being the wheel on his back, the wheel halves on the inside of his legs and the kickstand on his left leg. but all of these are acceptable compromises to make a working transformation in my opinion.

in terms of colour Fracture is mostly purple, however there are two shades of purple used on him. a lighter shade of purple is used on his shoulders and arms. While the rest of his visible robot body's purple is a darker much nicer, shiny metallic purple. His feet, wheels, hands, biceps, thighs, gun and the middle of his chest are all black. Which helps to break up all the purple. On top of that his face and kneecaps are silver, there is also some silver and red used on his shoulders. his eyes are also coloured red. and there is plenty of little details picked out on his chest, and legs using red. All in all his colour scheme looks great and sinister, it's just a shame that the purple used on his arms are lighter than the rest of his body



When it comes to poseability Fracture is about average, he has quite a bit but some of it is more useful than others. his head can rotate however it can't turn too far thanks to his "collar" blocking his chin. due to his transformation his shoulders can be raised slightly and can also rotate 360 degrees. his biceps can be moved in and out on a hinge at the shoulder, as well as rotating at the bicep. his elbows are rather tight but can hinge and hold poses nicely, due to transformation his hands can hinge in and out slightly. Fracture doesn't have any waist articulation but his legs are ball jointed at the hips, can rotate at the thighs, hinge at the knees, and as a byproduct of his transformaition his feet can hinge back and forth slightly. they're also quite long allowing him to stand quite well.

Transformation



Fracture's transformation to bike mode is fairly simple but effective. starting from his back unpeg the wheel from his back and straighten out the axle(? don't know bike terms) then rotate the wheel so it's in the correct orientation for a bike.
Still on his back now take the entire assembly and rotate it up at the hinge behind his head. so it sticks straight up, then pull it forward and past his head, causing the black part of his chest to rotate around and reveal his seat molded into the underside of it.
Bring Fracture's shoulders up and peg them together around the seat to create the rear of the bike mode. fold in his hands and peg them in under the shoulders to create the sides of his bike mode.
Fold away the feet and peg the legs together, uniting the two halves of his rear wheel together. then using his knees and thighs bring his legs under his vehicle mode and peg the feet into his shoulders.
If it hasn't already been locked into place push the handlebar assembly into where it plugs into the front of the bike mode to lock that in place.
finally lower the kickstand.
And there you have it, fracture's cycle mode

Vehicle Mode



As a bike Fracture looks just as dangerous as he did as a robot. the the entire back section of the bike being made up of an amalgamation of slick looking spikes. the main body of the bike is quite bulky and doesn't look like it would be particularly comfortable to ride on, but it does look cool.

this mode has mode lighter purple visible as the front of the bike mode is also light purple, but also features some black and red. there's also more red used on the front wheel cover so again even thought fracture is almost entirely purple, it is still nicely broken up.

Accessory



Fracture's only accessory is the gun he is often seen with in the show, it looks just as slick and evil as Fracture himself does, and has 3 different pegs for him to hold it with, not that I've actually been able to find a way to make fracture hold it that looks particularly good in my opinion. but that's just me. I tend to just peg it onto the peg hole on the back of his wheel on his back in robot mode. mimicking the way he stores it on his back in the show.
it's a little depressing that Fracture doesn't have the wrist blades he often uses in the show, or built in minicon shoulders but the gun is still nice. with some red paint used on the holdes along the barrel it looks really cool and dangerous.
the gun also has a hinge halfway down it's body to fold the gun in half to make it more compact for storage options. sotring it on the side of his vehicle mode in this way makes it sort of seem like an exhaust pipe which is a cool touch.

Size Comparison




Overall

all in all Fracture is a very fun and cool looking toy, and one of the better figures in the RID15 toys. he may be a bit on the skinny side, have a fairly large backpack formed out of his front wheel and lack the extra weapons and allies he has in the show but he's still very nice. I don't know if I'd say he's worth the full $29 but I'm very happy with my purchase.

Additional Pics

[SMHFConvoy]

Did my own review last week in the RID combined thread

[SuspectimusPrime]

I have only watched a few eps of the cartoon and skipped to the second part of Season 1 to see a better idea of the Decepticon group. I was really anticipating this figure, and was really happy that it did not disappoint.

Fracture was fun to transform, with all parts being super tight. He is a very light figure - feels a lot lighter to me since I have not collected any other moulds from this line. The plastic used in this figure is also lighter/softer (a very similar grade of plastic to Generations Windblade), which helps take less tension off joints when posing. QC on my figure was excellent with no issues at all.

The tightness of some of its joints, mainly the elbows, makes it slightly fiddly to pose. The inherent proportions of the character also slightly impedes poseability from its large shins vs small thighs, and large forearms vs small biceps. However the mould has added a heel joint as well as two joints in the shoulder to make the character design work. It doesn't take too much effort to get him to hold his cannon weapon with two hands.

The other thing I really like about this mould is that it's unique to the character it was design after. Similarly to Lockdown's character design, Hasbro won't be able to get a whole lot of repaints out of it and will always stand out on my shelf despite being a grunt character.

[GoktimusPrime]

IMO this is yet another sub-par RiD Warrior Class figure (none of them have really amazed me). While I understand that motorcycles aren't easy alt modes, other recent comparable figures like Generations Wreck Gar were much, much better toys than Fracture. The robot articulation is pretty ordinary, and the upper arms can pop out if you're not careful with bending the ratchet-jointed elbows. The motorcycle is bulky and ungainly in shape. I'm not quite sure how it would look with someone riding it. The handlebars don't seem to sit in a position that's conducive for a rider. The weapon becoming the muffler is also just far too chunky. Again, Wreck Gar did a far superior job in incorporating his weapon as a muffler.

The one thing that I do like about this toy is how the halves of the rear wheel are able to come together without relying on pegs to align. Instead, it relies more on pressure from the clipped together legs to keep the rear wheel in position. That's pretty neat.

Overall: Disappointing. Not recommended.

[SuspectimusPrime]

By 'recent' you're referring to a figure from 4 years ago? Generations Wreck Gar along with other pre-FOC moulds to be of the golden age of modern CHUG engineering (2010-2012 when HasTak didn't start going cheap), and difficult for RID15 Warrior or CW Deluxe figures to compare against. If I was browsing through a bricks and motar store for kicks with $20-30 of disposable income and had a choice between any new RID15/CW figure and a Generations Scourge, I'd easily grab the army builder (so far only got 3 spares).

[GoktimusPrime]

I still think that the quality of current Combiner Wars figures are much better than RiD2015. I just chose Wreck Gar because he's the most recent* Deluxe motorcycle that I own. But for a more recent comparison, I'd definitely rate any of the CW Deluxes over the RiD Warriors. Especially considering that CW figures are additionally "burdened" by the necessity to form an arm or leg of a gestalt robot. RiD Warriors don't have this imposition, and yet still manage to come off second best.

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*at least until UW Groove comes out