Generations Warpath

 

Robot Mode: Remember Warpath, the heavily armored Autobot warrior from the G1 cartoon? And remember that cute little Minibot figure that was supposed to represent him? Well, you got the idea that it was the same bot, but the figure lacked articulation, size, and… what are those called? Oh yes, legs. It didn’t have real legs. Well, that’s fixed, that much I can tell you right off the bat. But let’s take a closer look at this new Warpath.

First off, I’m very pleasantly surprised how well this robot figure fits together. Seeing as he emerges from a tank and has tank tracks for arms AND legs, Warpath is an amazingly lean, wholesome figure. No big rucksack, no kibble on arms or legs, just a nice, clean humanoid figure with a big gun barrel in the middle of its chest. Very nicely done.

Warpath features excellent posability and his big feet give him a stable platform to stand on. The only thing he can’t do is stand on one leg (at least not for long), seeing as he has a small wheel (from the vehicle mode) in the middle of each foot, which makes balancing on just one foot pretty much impossible. No other limitations, though.

Warpath’s gun barrel can extend from his chest and angle upwards, if you want. Additionally Warpath has two shoulder-mounted weapons, a four-barreled gun and a missile launcher with a ridiculously long red missile (toy safety standards, I guess. Will shorten it when I’m done with this review). And if that isn’t enough firepower, Warpath has room for clip-on weapons on both arms and both legs, plus the standard fist holes that work for about 80 percent of all Transformers weapons ever made. So arming him to the teeth is no problem at all.

Finally, the figure has lots of very nice details, starting with the great head sculpt to the sculpted tank threads on arms and legs and numerous other details that make this figure outstanding. So the bottom line: Except for the overlong missile (sorry, I know I’m reaching) there is absolutely nothing wrong with the robot mode. Two thumbs up.

Vehicle Mode: Naturally Warpath becomes a red tank. I’m not one hundred percent certain, but I don’t think it’s an existing model. The tank tracks are divided in the middle, the rear tracks set slightly farther apart than the front ones. The tank design is somewhat reminiscent of the tank mode of Armada Megatron with the middle of the tank being shorter than the tracks. The tank turret in the middle can turn a full 360 degrees and the barrel can angle upward, though not very far. The formerly shoulder-mounted weapons are now on the sides of the turret.

Just like in robot mode, there are four places for clip-on weapons to be attached, enabling you to make this tank even more heavily armed than it already is. There is writing on both sides, spelling “ZOW-333” and “K4-90W”. Or, as Warpath would probably say, “Zoweee!” and “Ka-Pow!”. So the bottom line: A nice vehicle mode, no complaints at all.

Remarks: Warpath was among the numerous Autobots who appeared from nowhere in the second season of the original cartoon series. Most fans will remember him for his funny way of speaking, always adding his sound effects like “WHAM!” or “BANG!” to his sentences. He should also be remembered, though, for being the first Autobot with a clearly military vehicle mode. He survived into the third season of the series, but never did play all that vital a role. Consequently there haven’t been that many Warpaths throughout Transformer history.

Now we have one for the Generations line and while I could fill this space with confusion as to why Hasbro has two homage-lines (Generations and Reveal the Shield) running side by side, I’ll instead say this: Warpath is one of the best Transformers figures I’ve had the pleasure to own. Fully recommended to just about everyone.

Rating: A

 

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Update 2011-04-12: Fellow Transfan brawl56 from the NTF-Archive forum was so kind to add the proper sound effects to one of my pics. See last picture in the gallery below.