Phil's
Transformers Hunt For The Decepticons Tomahawk
and
Dark Of The Moon Decepticon Vortex
Review

Hunt For The Decepticons Tomahawk

Tomahawk is a black attack helicopter covered in missile launchers and guns.... so it came as a big surprise to find a little silver Autobot symbol on each wing because his general form screams Decepticon. His general shape is quite similar to Energon Blackout/Stormcloud but there are differences. In fact the size isn't an awful lot bigger here, he feels a very small deluxe toy in vehicle mode. The nose is longer than the Energon scout with a more angular body. The wings are longer and angled in the middle. At the end of each wing is a machine gun, there's a pair of missiles moulded under each wing and a missile launcher attached to the underside. The missile launcher is removable, it's mounted on a 5mm peg. Opposite the peg is a clip, mounted on a ball joint which allows it to be attached to the 3mm bars that are on several recent toys. This is the first weapon to have a clip connector as well as the older 5mm peg. There's 4 bars on the toy itself - one forms the body of each machine gun and one on each side of the tail. As well as the bars the clips can latch onto the body of the missiles they use for storage purposes. The helicopter has four rotor blades which turn mounted a little bit too high above the body of the helicopter. Turning the helicopter over we find a lot of grey and bronzey beige on the underside which features fold down landing gear under the nose and in the centre of the body where the wings meet it.

Transform: fold the under carriage down under the nose. Fold the bottom out to extend the undercarriage to form the legs. The beige bits then go forward to form the feet and the black bits go back to become the heel spurs. Swing the wings round so both L shaped pairs cover each other and point backwards. Split the tail in two straight up the middle and fold forward & slightly to the sides. Fold the legs back into space occupied by the tail. Stand with the underside facing forward. Rotate the air intakes so they face forward. Bend the tail halves back at the wrist to expose the hands and then bend the tail halves forward at the elbow. Close the tail fins on his right arm to form a scissor blade. Fold the nose of the helicopter forward to form the chest at which but about half way though you open the canopy & fold the head through it. Rotate the head to face forward and close the chest.

The colour balance of the toy is altered in robot mode with the grey going on the legs and hands while the black is mainly confined to the upper body & arms and the beige is limited to the shoulders and feet. The head both in shape and colour is very reminiscent of Cybertron Crosswise/Galaxy Force Autovolt. It's basically a black helmet round a silver face. His eyes are individually lightpiped in blue but over them is a yellow visor creating an interesting effect. Articulation isn't bad: ankles bend in two places, the knees bend, there's a high thigh swivel, ball jointed hips & shoulders - one of the shoulders on mine is stiff so turning the arm turns the upper chest instead! - bicep swivel, bending elbow, neck that leans forward & back at the bottom and is ball jointed at the top. The wings and the machine gun bars on the ends have ended up behind the shoulders while one of the two bars on the tail has are now on the outside of each lower arms giving you plenty of places to mount clip weapons. The tail fins are mounted on the right arm where they form a blade weapon which can open & close like a pair of scissors. The hands are moulded in an open position, but are set so that between the thumb and the other fingers there's the majority of a 5mm circle that can be used to hold the missile launchers - or any other standard Transformer weapon - by it's peg.

So.... Tomahawk isn't a bad toy at all. That's not going to stop me criticising it though: I'm not 100% keep on the head, despite it's lightpiped eyes behind the visor, because I think it looks a bit too human and too much like Cybertron Crosswise/Galaxy Force Autovolt. The Black doesn't work too great as an Autobot either. I wonder if it might have worked better with the black changed for light blue, the beige & grey swapped for dark blue and a different head as Autobot Whirl. But it is a good toy and these are minor quibbles against the general good standard here. I'd only been thinking the other day that we needed a toy that had clips and 5mm pegs on the weapons and Tomahawk provides. Darkmount is now coveting his missile launchers!

Tomahawk was a Wave 3 Hunt For The Decepticons toy, appearing with his fellow new mould Terradive Naturally Hasbro UK chose this as the Hunt For The Decepticons deluxe wave to skip. Both have turned up much later, as part of a wave received by only Smythes & Toymaster but both Tomahawk & Terradive continue to be popular toys which have been slightly difficult to obtain since their release.

Decepticon Vortex

Like his case mate Terradive, and many other late 2010/early 2011 Transformers, Tomahawk's instructions show a different robot head, in this case with a more Decepticon like appearance. So we waited for it to show up in Generations or Reveal the Shield. And it didn't. Instead Tomahawk's repaint, Vortex, became one of a number of exclusives for the third Transformers film Dark of the Moon. However Vortex wasn't a US store exclusive, he instead became an exclusive for Japanese Transformers manufacturer Takara along with DA-11 Arcee, a repaint of Revenge of the Fallen Chromia packed with a remoulded Roadbuster Mechtech weapon, and DA-12 Air Raid, a repaint of Revenge of the Fallen Breakaway packed with a remoulded Topspin Mechtech weapon.

Here's the colour changes to Tomahawk's plastic to produce Vortex:

Beige (shoulders, feet, elbows & missiles) becomes sea blue. The new head is moulded in this colour too.
Grey (hands & tail connectors, air intakes & and nose fins) becomes purple.
Grey (legs) becomes black.
Black (lower legs, rotors, scissor blades & elbows) stays black
Black (all other parts) becomes grey)
Clear Yellow (canopy) becomes clear purple.
The new lightpipe for the head is moulded in clear red.

Sadly we loose the missile launchers, one of the best bits of the original toy, for this release as well as the gun under the nose which is replaced by a 5mm Mechtech port for use with his glue machine gun, another remoulded version of Roadbuster Mechtech weapon replacing the chain saw blades with the gun barrel.

I like the repaint, but I don't like the loss of the weapons. And I especially don't like the prices being asked for him at present: he sold out immediately and is currently commanding about £35 to import to the UK!

Vortex was numbered DD-06 in the Japanese Dark of the Moon toyline. A gallery of images of the toy can be found on the 2005 boards.

Future Repaints

Generations version of Vortex with the c-clip weapons reinstated please. Tomahawk in pale blue as Whirl or Rotorstorm because I need some more updated Wreckers.

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