Max B is the upgraded form of BB the larger part of the Beast Wars II ATB (The smaller part, Starscream is upgraded into Hellscream. Max-B is a re-mould of the Beast Wars K-9 toy which is itself a remould of Beast Wars Wolfang. K-9 did not appear in the Japanese Beast Wars toylines but was shown on 2 different leaflets as "coming soon!"
The yellow & black of K-9 are remoulded in a dark silvery grey while the most of the white becomes a paler grey. With the toy looking to the right little has changed: the lower rear leg, tail & back panel - the last two of which are found on both sides. If the toy looks left then on that side of the body we gain a new head and new upper leg. The head is obviously the K-9 sculpt rather than the Wolfang one: the left hand side has unaltered moulding, while the right hand side has a visor over the eyes, robotic lower jaw and an angular ear. The tail is a new sculpt with a gun and spiked ball built into it. The back panel is completely changed giving the impression of a jetpack now. Press the trigger on the top of the back to cause a pair of blades to flick out in front of the beast head. If you remove the back panel you'll find two anchor missiles still stored inside. One of them can be removed and inserted in the front of the back panel and fired using the trigger there. If the blades are folded back and the missile loaded then the missile will be fired first then the blades will swing out. The missile can be fired when the blades are deployed too.
Transformation: TF: Pull out the tail and set to one side. Fold the back of the top of the rear legs down to cover the back of the bottom of the legs, and from there flip out the robot feet and heel spurs. Straighten. Open out the halves of the beast head and reveal the robot head. Remove the entire back of the beast. On either side of the beast fold the halves of each side of the beast down till they meet in the middle sticking out to the sides. Push down on the upper body to shorten the robot's size. Fold the arms out to the sides, straighten and pose the fore legs as you like. Take one of the missiles from his back and insert into the base of the tail. Insert into the hand as a weapon.
Further reinforcement that this is the K-9 mould is found in robot mode: the feet are the remoulded rounded versions found on the K-9 toy rather than the twin points of the Wolfang foot. Some additional re-colouring here: the light blue becomes purple. The only real piece of new remoulding on this mode is the completely new head with moulded spikes and bionic eye. When held by the handle the tail weapon can be used as an anchor launching weapon or rotated the other way and held as a gun. There's another post on the missile launcher's barrel that enables the tail to be held as a melee weapon and for him to attack using the spike ball on the end. The back panel can either be remounted as a jet pack or held by a tab on the back as a hand weapon where both it's missile launching and blade deploying gimmicks still work. Articulation is the same as the previous versions of the toy: . The robot has some ankle articulation from the TF, Bending knees and elbows, ball jointed hips and shoulders - the later of which can swing forward as part of the TF - and a neck joint.
Overall: weapons upgrades for both modes which is good. But I'm afraid this doesn't quite work for me and I've got little idea why ! It's possible that the toy is a little too busy: in robot mode he's rather swamped by the weapons which affects his balance.
Max-B is Beast Wars II toy D-24. He has neither been repainted or sold in the west.