Last Knight Hound

Robot Mode: Last Knight Hound is kind of a weird figure. At first glance he looks pretty detailed and intricate. On second glance you notice that most of the details are just sculpted and mostly all the same color, so the figure is far less than it seems at first. And then you hold him in hand and the longer you do, the more fun he gets, because despite being a rather simple figure overall, he still looks cool. So... yeah, you really need to hold Hound in hand to get a real feel for this figure, is what I’m trying to say.

Hound is pretty nicely articulated, though his bulk sometimes gets in the way a bit. He can even remove his helmet, which makes a nice visual as you can make him tip his hat, so to speak. He comes with four weapons, two big rifles and two smaller guns, and a connector piece so he can store them all on his back. Also, his body and weapons are covered with no less than 26 hardpoints, so he can attach / store lots of additional weapons, such as the arsenal of the 2014 Age of Extinction Hound figure, if you so desire. I don’t have that figure, so I can’t try it out, sorry. Either way, though, Hound is a good-looking, fun figure in robot mode. Certainly not a revolution, but good.

Alternate Mode: Hound transforms into a military flatbed truck from Mercedes with an anti-aircraft gun on the back. Which is kind of strange, seeing as Hound became a military ambulance in the movie, as far as I know. Apparently the original stock pictures of this figure showed it sporting red cross markings, but due to trademark issues they were removed. Anyway, the truck looks pretty good, though much like the robot mode he could have used a bit more colored highlights to bring out the details of the sculpt. There are no visible robot bits and everything fits together nicely, so no complaints. The combined weapons on the back look pretty good as well, so to sum it up: a nice vehicle mode. Not spectacular, but good.

Remarks: Hound first appeared in the fourth live-action Transformers movie, Age of Extinction, and was popular enough to not be killed off immediately, instead surviving to star in The Last Knight. I haven’t seen the movie, but I assume he basically did the same stuff as in the first, namely blowing up a lot of bad guys (causing plenty of collateral damage in the process) while saying cool (and possibly weirdly racist) stuff. Just a guess on my part.

As for the toy, I passed on the AoE version of the figure, so I can’t compare it with that. I would have passed on this one as well, but I got it as part of a package deal from Hasbro Germany for their transformation challenge contest and I am happy for it. He is not an all-time classic figure, certainly not, but he is one of those figures that gets more fun the more you hold it in hand. So while I can’t honestly advise buying him at full retail price (at least not full retail price here in Germany, the prices for LK figures here are insane), he is a good choice if you get him on clearance.

Rating: B-