Black - Plastic - Life: Maketoys Mobine Series - Paladin/Chaos Pictorial Review

Been on a hiatus for quite some time already (doing review, not buying stuff, LOL) so I thought that this would be a good time to start off again. Been married and living in a new house for a month and a half now, setup my temporary photoshot set yesterday. Do let me know what you think about it.

Now, for something that's been in my hands for almost a month but before that, some introduction is in order.

Many of the mass audiences might remember the antagonist from the 2009's Live Action Movie, Revenge of the Fallen which was....The Fallen, the alien-like, kinda old, boring color who have to gave "his face" at the end movie. However, let us turn our attention the the other The Fallen (because honestly, the movie version sucks!), one of my favourite character, as told in Dreamwave's War Within Continuity.

Ancient Spirit of Evil! (LOL)
Pic Credit : Web

The Fallen (also known as Megatronus by some, inspiring Megatron's name) originated as one of the first 13 Transformers created by Primus during the long battle with Unicron, in-charge of overseeing destructions and rebirth. However, more enticed by the former than the latter, The Fallen slowly drifted away into the darkness, bringing him to Unicron and betrying his creator.

An attempt to sabotage his creator resulted him and his new master trapped for what seems to be forever.... Millions of years later, after a Space Bridge accident which caused Optimus Prime and Megatron to be lost, The Fallen returns, with Unbinding ceremony in his mind

Unbinding is a process of opening The Seal of Primus which required four Cybertronians, representing different angles of the Geometry of Dissolution. The said Cybertronians are Grimlock, Jetfire, Blitzwing and Hotspot

The Fallen VS Grimlock
Pic Credit : Web

The purpose of Unbinding is for Cybertron to be located by Unicron in which he did as evidenced by 1986's Transformers The Movie. Although successful, the distraction made by Jetfire gave Primus himself enough time to manifest and casting The Fallen into the Seal of Primus which forms anew.

Maketoys Mobine Series - Paladin/Chaos Pictorial Review

Annouced on October 2011, Paladin/Chaos was on my Most Wanted list for quite some time due to the love of the character. Sadly, it received a few delays and was only released early 2013.

In Package

Front View
Btw, sorry for the cropped picture, set is a bit smaller

Unlike TFC or Fansproject, Paladin/Chaos didn't follow packaging design of his predeccessors, Giant and Battle Tanker.

Back View

The box basically showed in detail of Paladin/Chaos, from alt mode to robot mode and everything in between. Kind of dissapointing though as I expect to see some badda** The Fallan artwork

Aside from the toy, the set comes with a manual, again with mostly the same pictures used on the box.

The manual is kind of too basic wihtout much explanation and missing steps. However, this part of the manual is interesting

Maketoys' Battle Tanker add on for 2013 TFCC Scourge, which single-handedly causing Scourge's price on Ebay went through the roof (Thank you!)

Alt Mode

The figure comes as two components, one being Paladin and the other is the Missile Launcher. Let start off with Paladin first

Paladin transform into a twin-turrent futuristic heavy tank, in black, purple and orange colors

As you can see, Paladin contains a very nice detailing in which I seldom see in neither official release nor 3rd Parties. The half-a-sword that are attached to the turrets has very small pegs making them easy to fall off

The missile launcer, which comes with Paladin, has a more solid feel to it. However, the amount of Power Core Combiner (PCC) Ports visible is a bit too much, personally. However, the number of ports allow fan to customize their own mode (which I won't be doing, lol)

Back View

Another gripe would be that the fists are showing in the alt mode, it's either that or detached them without finding place to store them. The missile launcher has been released in 2 other variants to be used with PCC Combiners.

Robot Mode

Before we continue, I must say, I don't really understand the need of Paladin being a seperate figure than the missile launcher, other than to reuse and utilizing the missile launcher mold.

Paladin individually transform into a scout-sized robot which roughly the same as PCC. Transformation wise is intuitive, without being overly complex.

Maketoys did a great job in terms of the finishing and detailing, really love Paladin's sculpt

Size Comparison with United Black Convoy

Side View
Kind of 'thin', isn't he?

Back View

From the back however, is kind of 'naked' with Chaos's head visible and also big kibble.

To fix this, all the part that formed Paladin's alt mode must be use, in this case, the turret. However, with Paladin's height, he is more often than not, standing on it and he WILL stand on it, being that he is back heavy.

Articulation wise, he is roughly above average with a lot of range of movement. However, some limitation and difficulties to be expected on his shoulder and thigh, some maneuvering might help

A Jedi before a Sith

Chaos!

Before we proceed, here's the Missile Launcher getting ready (forget the fact that this make Chaos a part-formers)!

Presenting, Not-The Fallen, Chaos, the first Decepticons! Chaos possesses just the right mixture of orange, black and purple to give him a menacing look, suiting his name (The Fallen, not Chaos)

Side View

Nothing much change between Paladin and Chaos, in terms of the side view.

Back View

I really like the vibe that Chaos give, even from the back. Forgive me though for not turning Paladin's head around, haha

HIS..SCULPT...IS...GREAT! And Maketoys really went out on a limb here, giving Chaos a detailed and cleaned design.

Size Comparison

However, I must said, I'm pretty much dissapointed in terms of the feel of this set. Chaos (and Paladin, of course) felt a bit hollow and as-if they were made out of soft or rubbery plastics. Aside from that, the PCC ports can easily become loose where given slight pressure (doing pose, etc), they tend pop off. Moving on...

Articulations wise, Chaos is equipped with the average articulations for current Transformers. Head on a ball joint, waist swivel, double-jointed shoulders, 180o elbows range, ball jointed wrist.

On the lower body, Chaos has double-jointed thighs and roughly 90o knee bend paired with swivel joint and ball jointed feet.

However, due to design issue, waist can't be turn 360o without clearance between upper and lower body

The knee pads are nicely design to avoid no-kneecap syndrome

The shoulder canons are peg on the PCC port allowing 360o rotations. Also, notice the small gatling guns below the wrist, hidden in the underside of Chaos's lower arms.

Aside from that, there are 2 extra gatling guns, bigger than the one shown before. The guns can be stored in the compartment behind his leg

Wrist need to be taken of to use the bigger gatling guns

So in the end, how do you rate him? Honestly, the difference I felt between holding and looking at him is weird. Not to mention the delay which should've been met with better QC rather than the lousy PCC ports.

However, Maketoys scored big in terms of the design, cathing the persona of The Fallen. That kinda save the figure for me.