RID 2015 Thunderhoof

Robot Mode: Let us begin with Thunderhoof’s most remarkable feature, his antlers. The rake of his vehicle mode ends up on top of his head and is displayed prominently. You can either leave the rake level or slightly fold it together so that the tips of the antlers point a bit inward. I prefer the latter version, which is the official one, but both work so I left the antlers straight in some pics. Either way, Thunderhoof’s antlers look great.

Apart from the antlers, though, Thunderhoof is a pretty generic robot. Mostly blue and black, he has the wheels of his vehicle mode on arms and legs and is nicely articulated. He comes with a black rifle (which he has never used in the cartoon) and... yeah, not that much else I can write here. Don’t get me wrong, I like Thunderhoof, but for some reason I expected a bit more here. Not sure what, to be honest, but overall I can only say that the robot mode is good.

Alternate Mode: Thunderhoof transforms into a tractor with a big rake up front. The transformation is pretty straight-forward and the result is nice, no visible robot bits. The only slight downside is that the side windows of the tractor are mostly black, but partially blue, and the separation of the differently-colored parts is diagonal. This makes it look as if Thunderhoof’s windows have been taped over with black tarp because they’re broken or something. At least that was my first impression. Either way, though, a decent vehicle mode. Not spectacular, but fully okay.

Remarks: Thunderhoof was one of the many Decepticon criminals imprisoned on the Alchemore who escaped when the prison ship crashed on Earth. A former crime boss on Cybertron, he fell under the command of Steeljaw (which he didn't like, but apparently Steeljaw made him an offer he couldn’t refuse). He talked like a stereotypical New Jersey Mafioso and when I first saw a promo image of him, I so hoped that they would wind up calling him Ultimoose! Anyway, Thunderhoof was present for both end-of-season battles in the RID cartoon and saw himself defeated and imprisoned by the Autobots both times. Tough luck.

As a toy Thunderhoof is very solid and I love his antlers, but for some reason I can’t really get excited about this figure beyond that. While most of the other RID bad guys look really far-out, he’s basically just a normal robot with antlers on his head. Too little in the way of strangeness. Anyway, he’s good and there are too few Decepticon toys in the RID toyline anyway, so I do recommend him.

Rating: B