Beast Hunters Cyberverse Legion Abominus

The show may be over, but I still want to review some toys from the still present Beast Hunters toy line. And Cyberverse Legion toys. Besides, since when has a show being long since over stopped me from reviewing toys associated with it? It hasn't before, and I'm not about to start now. So let's dive into a special quintet of Predacons. The Terrorcons! ...No, not the zombies, the Predacons based on the G1 Terrorcons. They'll still eat your brains, however. Now, while these are the individual ones released in the first three waves of Cyberverse Legion toys for Beast Hunters, and not the translucent plastic versions that came in the Predacons Rising Target Exclusive gift set, (which feature all but Blight being hilariously misnamed for one another. I guess no one else wanted his name) they're so simple I might as well cover them all at once.



The Predacon Terrorcons in their beast modes are a colorful bunch. We have Twinstrike (Sinnertwin) as a yellow and teal Orthus, (like a Cerberus, but with only two heads) Hun-Gurr as a red and creamy white bipedal two-headed dragon, Rippersnapper as a grey and blue-green shark with arms and legs, Windrazor (Cutthroat) as a beige and green bird monster, and Blight (Blot) as a royal blue and pale purple ...ogre...thing...I guess. Twinstrike gets blinged out in metallic teal and purple paint, Windrazor gets purple adorning his wings, and everyone gets a little bit of yellow to tie them all together. Except Twinstrike because he's already yellow, and not in a cowardly way. Though his belly is yellow... They've all had a bit of dragon mixed into them to fit with the theme of the Beast Hunters Predacons all being dragons...except Grimwing, who's an ursagryph. (Darksteel may be called one as well)

In terms of articulation in beast mode, they're all slightly limited, but most of what they do have is ball jointed. Windrazor though shines in this mode as you can position the wings in all kinds of ways, even folded and tucked down into the body if you want. That's more than what the super sized 'Deluxe' Windrazor can do, which is rather pathetic. Each come with one Cyberverse accessory: Piston Hammer for Twinstrike, Dragontooth Saw for Hun-Gurr, Electrostatic Bow for Rippersnapper, Tornado Bow for Windrazor, and Blight gets the Affliction Hammer. Note that all the various hammers, bows, and saw-guns are exactly the same mold as one another. The Piston Hammer, Justice Hammer, and Affliction Hammer are all exactly the same. Wave 1 Twinstrike's hammer though is lighter than the weapons that come with his comrades, but I have no idea if the Twinstrike that comes in the same wave as the other three limbs has the same color hammer as their weapons or still the same light grey one from the first wave. Doesn't matter much, really. All of them have multiple attachment points all over to mount the weapons, including their mouths, and multiple attachment points on the weapons themselves. That will come in handy later.



Transformation of these guys is very easy overall. They're Legion class figures, what do you expect? Twinstrike though has a design problem. His yellow hip panels are supposed to pull out and swing around where the knee would be for both modes, covering up the lower leg in robot mode. They do it, but there's not quite enough clearance to do it happily. It's not uncommon for one of the push screw pins holding the panel onto the leg to pop right out. It's not that hard to put it back in, just put it back into the panel and twist the panel around and around while using the hammer to hold the piece of metal down. The rest have no such problems thankfully.

The homage to their G1 counterparts pretty much ends here, if it hasn't already. Aside from Hun-Gurr a little bit, especially those dragon head slippers he's still rocking, the robot modes of these five are all completely different to their G1 counterparts. Even in beast mode their colors didn't all line up with their G1 counterparts, especially Hun-Gurr, but I'm fine with it. Twinstrike has his beast mode heads for hands, (that's gotta hurt for whoever he punches) Hun-Gurr has the claws of the hind legs on his wrists, (the instructions say to fold them up, but they really don't want to do that) Rippersnapper looks like a bruiser, (though be careful with his head. It's only attached by a C-clip and can pop off very easily. It hasn't on mine very often, but I have to mention it) Windrazor looks pretty sinister with the wings on his forearms, and Blight...Blight looks like a lovable robot caveman...with his beast mode head sticking up off his butt. (leaving his robot mode head out in beast mode is...hilariously unfortunate)

Articulation in robot mode is again very limited. Ball jointed shoulders and hips, that's pretty much it. Although Windrazor's ball jointed elbow does let him cover his face with his arm and wing like a vampire's cloak if you're inclined. His, Rippersnapper's, and Blight's elbows are set at an angle which helps make them seem a bit more dynamic than just a straight arm. Blight's knees are also bent a bit, which helps in the same effect. They can all hold their included weapons as well as use many of the same attachment points from beast mode. (Twinstrike is an exception because his hands are the beast mode heads) Blight looks extremely eager to wail someone over the head with his hammer over and over again until it breaks, even well after the skull of said head has caved in.

And now, we get to talk about one more thing these guys can do. They can BUILD (not-so) GIANT ROBOT, combining to form Abominus! The transformation for this is simple. Twinstrike barely does anything to get ready, and neither does Windrazor. The individuals don't have any instructions as to how to combine them, but the gift set does. Not that they're needed, as it's all pretty obvious what needs to happen to put them together, and the instructions even miss bringing Rippersnapper's back down to help fill in the leg at the ankle.



And this is the result! It's...not that terribly impressive, really, but it's neat considering you're combining five Legion toys together. Yes, Hun-Gurr could have used to have been a Cyberverse Commander, which would have balanced things out more, but this mode was always only going to be a bonus. I like how the tail and dragon arms are used on Hun-Gurr to comprise Abominus' chest, and I like the details on the back of the robot hips for Abominus, though the latter could have used a bit of paint to bring it out. My Blight doesn't hang on to the connector clip on Hung-Gurr's leg all that well, but he still makes a pretty solid leg. Articulation for combined mode is generally limited to Hun-Gurr's shoulders and hips, but you can use Twinstrike and Windrazor's hip joints as elbows to some degree.

The weapons themselves can combine. Because of all the attachment points, there's many ways to put them together, but this is how you put them together officially. Take the hammers and plug them end to end, then plug the bottom one into the barrel of the saw-gun. Finally, attach the bows to either side of the top hammer. It looks absolutely ridiculous, but it's something you can do. You can still make use of many of those attachment points on Abominus to mount the weapons if the ridiculously big axe thing doesn't appeal. Or give them to other Cyberverse figures.

Combined, Abominus is only about the size of a Deluxe, just like ROTF Legends Devastator, but for Cyberverse this is decidedly huge. (as is clear next to Cyberverse Commander Trailcutter in the picture above) Unlike G1 Abominus though, this guy can only swap his components from left to right. Twinstrike and Windrazor can only be arms, Rippersnapper and Blight can only be legs. As this isn't supposed to represent G1 Abominus, I can more than easily live with that.

Do I recommend these five little guys? Yes. But not for the combined mode. I was suckered into going after them when I learned they could combine, but I find myself actually much happier with them as individuals. They're simple, but very fun to mess with, making them wonderful little desk toys. And $7 a pop really isn't too bad for them. Now, we've seen those upscaled...things they're passing off as Deluxe figures, and Twinstrike and Windrazor are part of that. However, they utilize more robust universal joints...and only maintain the original sized figure's articulation at best. Windrazor loses the joints in his elbow altogether. And at the time of their unveiling, they appeared to lack the combination pegs on their legs. I don't know if Hasbro put those back on, or even if the other three Predacon Terrorcons will see a release, but I don't really intend to find out. Skip those, go for the little guys if you have any interest at all in them. And if not, skip 'em. Personally, I'm quite happy to see Hasbro manage to sneak in the Terrorcons in some way as their own figures that can even combine.

These guys are ok, I know Hasbro is upscaling these legion figures to deluxe size but honestly, its more a epic failure, just because their aim is simple transformations, doesn't mean that you can't improve upon the ordinal design with the larger scale, like giving them better arm & leg joints, for legion size, I can understand, but deluxe, I seriously doubt kids would want a figure that can't do much movement, hell, I'm not even sure where Hasbro gotten this idea that a lot of figures they been producing of late are to complex for kids, I mean a lot of the Prime RID & BH line figures have pretty simple transformations, compared to what coming in the Generations line!

Upscaling the Commanders is also slightly weird, but only really for Optimus. Predaking actually looks...good, and is still a FAR better toy than the Beast Fire Predaking. This stuff is filler for movie/Generations stuff later, but I still really don't like it. Smokescreen is a pain in the butt to convert, yes, but the other one looks stupid! And Bumblebee isn't hard at all, he does most of the work for you as it is.

The Predaking is a completely new mould, its the only one that's not an up scale of another figure and its the only one I desire to get! Personally, I'm not very keen on Abominus in general, thou the figures that make up this legion class Abominus aren't to bad!

another great review.
In my honest opinion, this Abominus is an abomination!
He needs to be buried at sea and forgotten about.

And Piranacon will hate you forever for littering his sea. 

Detective Barricade wrote:And Piranacon will hate you forever for littering his sea. 

Let the two fight it out for domination of the seas, both are underdeveloped and forgettable as combiners go!

I agree galvy  

Great review as always!    But I'm with the others, not really feeling it with this version...

Like I've said before, Abominus is merely a bonus feature that these little guys can do, not the main focus. The individuals however are fun to mess with even if Abominus is almost as ugly as Legends Devastator.

Don't make me have to dig a picture out of him.

no need ......they all suck....haha

Abominus is better than Legends Devestator, Devestator combined is partially a brick compared to Abominus!

bricks