General Information: Images:
Text from Hasbrotoyshop.com: Prepare to do battle – AUTOBOT style! Gear up with the good guys and march into combat with this valiant warrior in robot mode. Or convert to stealth boat mode to spy on the enemy undersea! Either way, you’re well armed for battle! The only question is: are you ready? Detailed AUTOBOT figure converts form robot mode to stealth boat mode—and back again! Ages 5 and up.
Vehicle Mode: Despite being a smaller Scout Class figure, Depthcharge is full of detailing that gives him an impressive, "real life" appearance. From stem to stern he has details like vents, bolts, radar dishes, armor plates, grids and even portholes. Other cool details are the weapons on this figure. The missile pods on the back each have eight missiles sculpted inside them. On the front of the ship is a large dual barreled gun that is reminscent of a weapon that plays a key role in the climax of the film. Depthcharge shows mostly blue grey plastic in this form. A light grey paint is used for camo patterns distributed on the front and sides of the ship. Light blue paint is used for the row of windows under the radar tower. Black paint is used to paint the inside panel of the missil epods. Grey paint is used for an Autobot symbol on the left side of the ship. It's a simple paint scheme, but for a military vessel it works. Since the designers were aiming for a more real life aesthetic, it wouldn't have made much sense to have Depthcharge take on all sorts of super bright colors or look too flashy in vehicle mode. The missile pods on the back of the vehicle can be moved independently on ball joints. I love this since it allows you to point them up, to the sides or even completely around. It's not exactly easy to give a naval ship any sort of real functionality at this scale so I'm happy the designers thought of this. Transformation to Robot Mode:
Robot Mode: The head design is slightly reminscent of his Beast Wars namesake. With its angled helmet portion, pointed chin, angled eyes and a mouth that looks like it has a rebreather of some sort, he looks "aquatic". His chest and waist have angled designs and on either side of his "stomach" area are tubes and pistons. His chest is sculpted to look like layers of armor on top of each other and the top most layer has vent line details on the front of the chest. The side panels from the vehicle mode form his hands here, which are huge with big, powerful looking hands that look dangerous! Overall, this is one super detailed Scout Class figure. In this form, Depthcharge reveals black and gold plastic on his inner limbs. His shoulder joints, upper arms and the upper legs are all cast in black. the gold plastic is found on joints such as his missile pod ball joints and the hinges inside his legs. Gunmetal grey, light blue grey, blue and gold paint all make up details in this form. Among my favorite details are the gold paint used for small vent details o his torso and the gunmetal grey paint used for the tubes and pistons on his waist area. The robot eyes are painted blue, staying true to the G1 concept of Autobots having blue eyes. Depthcharge has an impressive twenty two points of articulation. I was a bit stunned by this as when I saw the preview pictures, I never expected him to have the ability to move that much! What's even better is that six of these points of articulation are ball joints. These include his shoulder and leg/hip joints, allowing for a wide range of movement. His arms alone have six points of articulation each which is awesome. In this form you can really let loose with his shoulder missile pods since they'll point in any direction you can get his arms and the pods into. Many of the figures in this line seem to be shying away from having separate weapons (there is a distinct lack of missile firing toys in this line) so it's great to give us some type of weapon, especially one as cool as these. Besides, integrating the weapon into the body form keeps them from getting lost!
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In several pivotal scenes in "Revenge of the Fallen", Navy ships are called into action or attacked by Decepticon forces. When creating the figures in the Scout assortments, the idea was to create characters that could exist in the movie universe even if they didn't appear on screen. Depthcharge is one of these Scout Class figures and his alternate mode is a military ship that one could easily see as having been part of the armada of ships shown in the movie.
