Phil's
Revenge of the Fallen Depthcharge
and
Nightboat, The Crime Solving Boat aka "Sonar"
Review


Depth Charge

Depth Charge is a Littoral (Close to shore) combat ship with the helicopter deck at the rear being replaced with a pair of huge elevating and pivoting missile launchers (moulded & non-functional). The entirety of the ship is made up of sea grey/blue plastic with a lighter camouflage pattern covering it.

TF: Split the prow & most of the deck in two and fold forward to become the legs. Rotate at the robot's waist with the underside of the rear of the boat facing forward. Fold the tower halves - now at the base of the leg - back to become heel spurs. Pull the rear sides away from what would be the robot's shoulders to form hands - fold out behind the boat. Separate the helicopter deck and the launchers and fold to the sides to form the arms. Fold the arms into a neutral position, fold the shoulder pads up and position the missile launchers.

Depth Charge's robot mode has the oddest legs of any Transformer - the prow and sides of the ship form the lower legs pointing forward at an angle. Except this is just a shell with the actual lower leg attached to it at an angle till it meets with a knee joint which is behind the leg and with the upper leg rising diagonally towards the waist. The overall effect is something like a centaur with the knee bending in the wrong direction like an animals. The ankles bend to the sides and forward & back while the knees bend. There's a swivel joint on the thigh, the hip joints are ball joints while the waist joint turns. Neck & shoulders are again ball joints with a swivel bicep joint and a double bending elbow. Most of the body parts introduced for the robot mode are in black plastic but the ankle joints, shoulders and missile pod mounts are a beige plastic. The missile pods are the only weapons Depth Charge's robot mode has - mounted on ball joints they can be rotated and elevated on his shoulder pads. The peg holes inside his hands - used for attaching the hands to the sides of the boat - are just the right size for the pegs on Skystalker's weapons so he can hold those.

Decent vehicle mode - not enough Transformer boats. Odd but decent robot. Worth a look, but his repaint is better


Nightboat, The Crime Solving Boat

The packaging says Sonar. But since it's a black repaint that puts it into the territory occupied by 80s black super vehicles Knight Rider, Airwolf & Streethawk so it therefore follows that it must be the homage of these created for the Simpsons episode "And Maggie Makes Three" A basic colour swap - sea blue/grey becomes black, black becomes dark blue and beige becomes white. The black on the boat's skin alternates between gloss and matt giving a nice camouflage pattern. Superb repaint.


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