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Series: Beast Machines
Allegiance: Maximal
Categories: Basic
Year: 2001
What the enemy does not see can definitely hurt them!
At first, Vehicons thought Battle Unicorn would be an easy target - but then they had to fight against him. Underneath his striking, armored facade is an extremely powerful warrior. Hooves are silent on any terrain but stomping causes seismic disturbances that scramble Vehicon receptors. Armed horn can penetrate most metals and alloys with destructive results. Skill with battle-ax in Robot Mode causes Vehicons to scatter the second he converts. In both modes, special armor plating makes Battle Unicorn invisible to Vehicon radar. Uniquely able to teleport within a 500 foot radius. Certain Vehicon Generals still doubt he really exists.
Robot Mode: Battle Unicorn appears like a Samurai warrior in heavy armour. He wears a helmet with pike on top, has thick upper arms and legs, and pointed boots on his feet. A very nice job as far as detailing goes, including the slightly melanchonic look on his face. His weapon also fits very nicely with that image, a big axe with the horse tail on the bottom, almost turning it into a staff. So look-wise there is absolutely no cause to complain and the detailing on both the body and the weapon also look quite good.
Battle Unicorn is also quite posable, though there is one tiny flaw here: The construction of his robot torso is thus that some poses, especially when it involves moving the legs, cause him to split open, as the connections holding the torso together aren't the most solid in the world. Also, there is a tiny hole right under his ribcage (or where a human's ribcage would be), allowing you to see right through him. So all in all a very nice robot, but with some problems regarding construction. Still, very nice.
Alternate Mode: There are very few unique alternate modes in the long history of the Transformers, both in the area of vehicles as well as beasts. Among the beast Transformers, though, the only other horse-Transformer I know of is the Japanese Mach Kick and Battle Unicorn takes it one step further as well. He's not only a horse, he's a unicorn (as you might have guessed from his name). The only unicorn in Transformer history. For that alone he gets some bonus points for originality.
The unicorn itself is pretty posable as well. All four legs move and it can lower the head in order to charge horn-first at enemies. You need to be a bit careful during posing, as the horn, the crest, and the tail are all connected (they become the staff/axe in robot mode) and under certain circumstances can cause the body to become contorted or pop open. If you transform it carefully, though, that shouldn't happen. So bottom line: A nicely-made, very unique beast mode with no obvious flaws. Nicely done.
Remarks: Beast Machines, like most other Transformers series, featured a lot of toys that never appeared in the TV series. Battle Unicorn is one of those. He's also the Transformer that I have a lot of trouble writing the name of, as I usually end up with Battle UniCRON instead of UniCORN. I guess there are more world-devourers around in our world than unicorns (don't tell Professor Princess!). Anyway, Battle Unicorn is certainly not a revolution as far as Transformers go, but he is definitely one of the better figures in the Beast Machines line, has a very unique alternate mode, and except for some stability problems when it comes to his torso, no flaws. So a solid recommendation for all Beast-fans.
Rating: B+
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