04.09.08

CMs 1/48 Legioss/Tlead (Part 1: The Legioss)

Posted in 1/48, Alpha/Legioss, CMs, MOSPEADA/RT New Gen, Tread/Tlead/Beta at 6:49 am by micronian

 

Review: Two toys in one package to be reviewed in two posts

NOTE: You can not purchase the Legioss and Tread (aka Tlead, I prefer Tread) separately. However, since there are two fully functional toys here I felt it necessary to split the review into two posts. This post will focus primarily upon the Legioss. The second post will focus primarily on the Tread but will have a combined total score (some portions of the review may overlap).

 

Packaging & Extras: (4/5)
I’m giving this a higher score than I really feel I ought to. When you buy a nearly $300 toy it’d be nice for the packaging to reinforce that but this package does not. There’s no collector’s display flap, the box is thin and flimsy, the inner plastic tray is reinforced by cardboard and looks cheap and haphazard, and the whole packaging looks designed to be generic for all three paint variations. There’s a few little packets taped inside the plastic tray. The first packet includes instructions and decals. The second package includes the hands for the toys and some mini Ride Armors/figures. The final package is some pieces of plastic on a sprue (screw covers?). Also included within the tray is a display stand, a gun, a sword, an optional missile cluster, and a magazine replacement for the gun that allows it to attach to the optional missile cluster. Yes, the toy comes with a sword inspired by the episode where a delusional Ray/Rand hallucinates that the crew are medieval warriors fighting a big dragon who has run away with Aisha/Marlene. It’s all those little extras that keep this score up.

 

Charm & Collectability: (4/5)
The Tread has been a toy of legend for a long time now. Gakken’s 1/72 is one of the most rare and valuable Mospeada/Robotech collectibles in existence and the CMs toy is better in every respect (albeit more plentiful). The release of this toy, and Toynami’s future release of the MPC Beta, will likely collapse much of the value of the classic Gakken (although that toy will always catch a nice premium for its rarity). In the meantime these CMs toys are priced well beyond the acceptable level for most casual collectors ($270 in the US seems to be the going rate) so these toys won’t be common. The green and red variants (iota and zeta) promise to be even more of a collectible. The green variant is only available on CMs website for distribution in Japan at an MSRP of $295 (using 100:1) but apparently the red will not be a limited release (although undoubtedly fewer will be purchased than the blue guy). These are perfect transformation toys with some (very minor, mostly just in joints) diecast and old-school ratcheting joints, there’s no reason to think these won’t be collector’s items. Furthermore, there hasn’t been any word of Toynami seeking US distribution so, unlike the Mega House Ride Armor toys I reviewed recently, it doesn’t look like patience will land you a domestic release.  The picture below shows how the CMs stacks up next to a Gakken 1/55 Diecast two mode transformable toy.

 

Sculpt, Detail, and Paint: (6/10)
Man if this isn’t one of the hardest toys I’ve ever had to judge here. CMs threw the line art in the rubbish bin and decided to start fresh with their own interpretation on the vehicle. It looks like they watched a few episodes and decided they wanted to go with something closer to what we see in the cartoon (remember, this was a cartoon animated by Anime Friend… a group not exactly known for being able to follow line art). So instead of the Legioss looking somewhat squat and brutish, like it does in all the original artwork, we get something sleeker. Fortunately, while inaccurate, the toy still looks pretty decent as a new interpretation and has a ton of extra detail work. Unfortunately, much of the detail work is simply strange. You know those jets at the end of the Legioss’ arms? Well, apparently CMs thinks those should be backward facing intakes complete with turbine. You know those intakes on the chest that are covered by armor plates? The CMs Legioss has exposed turbines there also (and, if I’m not mistaken, half of those chest openings were meant to be backward thrusters). So, with all those intakes where does the CMs Legioss produce thrust? Well, don’t look on the feet, there’s no thruster detail there. Isn’t that all kind of odd? Then there’s the pilot. CMs may claim this is a 1/48 scale toy but take a look at the Aoshima pilot… doesn’t he look bigger than the CMs pilot? Apparently CMs made their sleeker version of the plane have too sleek a cockpit so it couldn’t accomodate an appropriately sized pilot figure (not removeable but painted) so they just shrank him to make it work. Similarly, you know how the Legioss has a bunch of concealed micro-missiles? CMs felt they’re not all the same size, the missiles in the forearms (at least you can see those missiles unlike the Toynami versions) are smaller than the ones everywhere else. There is a lot of subdued lines and rivets running through the plastic which is a very nice touch. A couple last quick issues, the head in fighter mode sits too far down from the cockpit and the forearms look really fat in comparison to the rest of the soldier-mode’s proportions.  If you saw the early footage that showed the toy having one too many missile bay doors on the legs it is true but it’s not as bad as you might think.  These extra doors are really there just to help you pop the landing gears out, you won’t/shouldn’t have them opened otherwise.

 

Design: (5.5/10)
Before I talk about what this toy is let me first stop to ponder about the things it is not.  There is no indication on this toy that it was ever intended to mate to a Tread toy.  There are no locking mechanisms in the forearms, there are no locking mechanisms on the feet, there isn’t even anything in the pelvis region that would help the toy connect to the extended boom of the Tread.  It makes no sense at all.  Toynami clearly never had a Beta toy in mind when they made their Alpha but CMs knew what they were getting into and still didn’t bother to try to engineer in some success?  I give CMs some credit for trying to design as durable a toy as possible but they did this by removing sleeve-like collapsing wherever possible. Now, you might be thinking “but the Legioss has sleeve-like transformations in the abdomen, legs, arms, and possibly even the feet and nose of the fighter” and you’d be right. The arms remain sleeves that collapse within just like the Toynami MPC (but done much better, it’s smooth here and collapses fully). Here’s the thing, if they could make buttery smooth transforming arms that work in the traditional sense why were they so afraid of using that same structure elsewhere on the toy? Everything else becomes Z-like joints that extend and collapse. In the area of the head and nose of the plane this is rather tricky and I think it will actually prove to make the toy less durable in the long run as everything is fairly stiff and requires a good amount of pressure (not to mention the two little plastic prods at the bottom of the nose that lock it into place). By far the ugliest example of these Z-joints are the legs. WTF? In order to pull off this type of joint the back of the leg is left oddly exposed and the mid leg is a friggin arch. Now, you would think if they were going to make the legs so awkward looking they’d at least put some sort of twist point in at the knee but no luck there. This whole system also is less than perfect for transformation leaving some odd gap (the calves touch in the line art) and making you second guess if you have both legs transformed in exactly the same way. Just to add insult to injury, CMs then went and made the arm fins intentionally too long for the forearms they’re supposed to collapse into leaving them slightly exposed in soldier mode and jutting out when combined to the Tread.  As if that weren’t all enough, the toy’s arms don’t lock to the leg and the wings are easily repositioned in fighter mode which makes it incredibly easy to knock that mode completely out of allignment.  So that’s it for the bad but there’s some good here too. The handling of the shoulder-mount is the best on any Legioss figure yet (even if you might think it looks a little small). The biggest plus though comes in the form of ratcheting joints. Not every joint has a ratchet system but the right ones do and the other joints are all nice and stiff.

 

Durability & Build: (9/10)
CMs might not have tried very hard to make this a faithful recreation of a Legioss, and they might not have had their most brilliant engineering team on the project, but they seemed to have made the right decisions in making this a toy that would last.  I really hope someone at Toynami bought one of these so they could get an idea what a well-built toy is like.  Sure, the toy feels light but if you look hard enough you’ll notice diecast in all the areas that take the most strain.  Some may not appreciate the glossiness of the plastic but it doesn’t feel brittle or flexible.  It wouldn’t be hard to intenionally break this toy but there’s nothing here that looks like it’s a disaster waiting to happen (CMs, I’m looking at the windscreen on those Ride Armors you made right now).  The paint job on my toy looks fantastic with only the tiniest hint of overspray.  Since this toy is so new I’ll be sure to update this review if there’s a sudden outbreak of bloggers noticing a fragile aspect to the toy.  Below are some comparison shots to the far more fragile/poorly built MPC.

 

Ariticulation: (7/10)
It should be noted that there’s a very easy mod that can be done to the hips that would probably earn this toy an additional point here but since I don’t think many people want to take a dremel to a $300 toy I won’t go into that.  As it is, I found the toy to just be average… in fact, I was very tempted to give it an even lower score than the MPC.  In comparison to the MPC you lose the ability to turn the head (downplay this all you want, a cocked head makes a big difference in poses) and you lose some of the articulation in the hands (not a very big deal).  In the CMs you do get a bit of camber/toe in the feet but since the hips aren’t ball joints you can’t really do much with that.  Hopefully most of you have come to realize that the design of the Legioss calls for big feet but what I don’t understand is how toy manufacturers haven’t learned that a little extra work is required to make those big feet adaptable for dynamic posing… this CMs toy might as well have skis on.

 

Total Score: (35.5/50)
35 is my “should I buy it or not” cut off and this toy scores just above it.  When I purchased it I thought I’d give it a much lower score but the look of fighter mode managed to grow on me (almost like a Super Deformed toy might).  What sells this toy more than anything else is that it’s the first Legioss toy since the Gakken 1/35 that feels like a good, old-fashioned toy.  That said, it’s RIDICULOUSLY over-priced.  If this Legioss had been sold by Toynami at $79.99 in the US as the MPC there would have been tremendous fan backlash but CMs is selling this as part of a combination package at more than triple that price… yikes!  So, if you’re not a huge Mospeada/Robotech: The New Gen fanboy there are much better toys you can buy for less.  At $270 could buy a Yamato 1/48 VF-1 ($120) and a 1/60 YF-19 ($150).  There’s a whole other toy that’s part of this package as well so check back for part 2 of this review!

 

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