The upside to all the tabbing is a pretty slick alt mode. He feels a little chibi for an F-15 Eagle, but he looks good. This is the one place where he feels small though. At 6”, he’s tall in his bot mode and I like it. As an F-15 he just seems a little small. He looks good with Tank, so that’s all that really matters. And I’ll be the first to admit that I’m spoiled by all these great MP Seekers that I don’t review.
Eagle Robo included some accessories, which I guess are a little bit partsforming, but I just prefer to be happy that his alt mode can store all this stuff. His alt mode missile batteries snap together and then two small side pieces come off the alt mode to create and shell & handle for Eagle Robo’s rifle. It’s a really fun piece, he holds it well, and it just gives him a more threatening edge that this guy needs.
Also included is the modular stand, the same as what came with Tank except for a different connecter made to fit Eagle Robo specifically. I like these stands more when I have more pieces. I’m still wrapping my head around them, but I think we’ll be able to put together some really nice display pieces the more and more of these Machine Robo figures we get.
Overall, I still enjoy Eagle Robo and I’m chomping at the bit to order Drill Rod (but I’m waiting for Bike Robo to come in… I’m waiting damn it!). He looks good in both modes (except that ugly neck), so it’s really just the transition that gets me. He’s not fun to transform and that can be killer. It’s going to depend on the others for me and this line though. A few tough engineering nuts like Eagle Robo are bound to happen, but as long as the majority of the other figures are slick & fun to transform like Tank, we’ll be good to go for a while on this line.
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He looks good, simple design but he carries it off. Who knows, he may even be leader one day!
Are they selling those bases separately? I can see them being a decent seller on their own.
As a multi-pack! Love it!
Great review, as always!
Shame to hear this one is rather fiddly, but I’ve pretty much come to expect that with my transforming robot / vehicles these days. So long as he’s not as bad as ROTFLMAO Jetfire or the new Junkions, though, I should be okay.
Is it just me, or is anyone else unnerved by his new head? It seems the most changed of all the new ones, and I may just do a repaint. But I’ll wait to see how it looks in-hand. It might grow on me.
I think that the fault is mainly in the paint app for the head.
If you look at the box where it’s somewhat monochrome, the head looks like they were going for ‘fighter pilot’ but the final execution looks more like ‘evil skull’
Possibly. I guess I’m just more used to him having a head that’s one solid light grey colour with a gold visor, perhaps.
I’m also partially used to him looking like a Legioss from Mospeada 😉
(thanks to Monogram Models buying Imai tooling to cash in on the nascent ‘Robotech’ market)
I’m so torn on this.
I have very few memories of the Go-Bots, but I did have a Leader 1 as a kid. As the second born, I was often in a position there my older brother got the leader and I got the second-in-command. He got Optimus Prime, I got Hot Rod. He got Keith, I got Lance. He got Duke, I got… well, he got Duke and Flint, but I had Sgt. Slaughter. And Lt. Falcon, who I guess was kind of the Hot Rod of the GI Joe movie.
You get where I’m going with this.
Go-Bots was one of the few toylines where I got the leader. So I have a real fondness for the character, even if I barely remember the show.
The new figure looks good, but I have a couple gripes. First of all, the size. At the price they go for, I’d expect something a little bigger than the $15 Transformers price point. Yes, they’re a little bit better constructed, but not triple the price worth. If I’m going to go in on a high end toy line, I expect the best, and mini-Masterpieces don’t do it for me.
Second, the head. It might be my childhood attachment to Leader 1, but one of his defining physical characteristics was the smooth head. The extra detail they’ve added just makes it look not like Leader 1 to me. For a line that’s banking so heavily on nostalgia, that’s a fail.
The price doesn’t bother me because these are imports and the price is in line with figuarts and the like.
On the head, I don’t know why they did the extra detail on his dome.
I *think* the detail was meant to be a guide for the paint apps, but it’s so heavy handed it turned into detailing. To my eyes it doesn’t convey the calm, confident look of a leader, it’s a scary thing.
Of course Tonka just made their own crap up, I don’t think ‘Eagle Robo’ was even a significant character in Japan’s Machine Robo lore, certainly not the LEADER of the good guys. I could be wrong. 🙂
When you get the Cy-Kill equivalent, can you do some pics with 4″ human figure and the bike mode? I want to see if he looks in scale with Joe and the like.
Seconded!
I just got Leader-1, Tank, and Screw-Head yesterday. Holt salted crap on a stick, these guys are horrendously fiddly!
I didn’t feel like Tank was fiddly, but Leader-1 definitely. I still haven’t spared any money for Rod Drill.